Longarm and the Voodoo Queen

LONGARM AND THE VOODOO QUEEN

By: Tabor Evans

Synopsis:

Half of a deputy federal marshal was pulled out of a New Orleans swamp, and Longarm's sent to pick up the scent--undercover, of course. At first, the city is a regular Mardi Gras of Maryland rye, Louisiana cooking, and the steamy French sheets of Miss Annie Clement. But like good weather, it don't last. Seems the truth is uglier than a gulch town madam. There's smugglers--lots of them. Smellier than a low tide lunch and more than happy to kill a man several times over just for bathing. And there's the matter of a mysterious Cajun beauty named Claudette. She may know something about a real mystery... like the voodoo doll made in the likeness of a deputy federal marshal. 228th novel in the "Longarm" series, 1997.

CHAPTER 1

The sun was just peeking over the moss-draped cypresses when the children came running along the bank of the bayou, laughing and capering, waving the bamboo poles they clutched in their hands. They came to a stop at their favorite fishing spot. Hands were plunged into the wooden bucket full of chopped mullet, and the slimy little bits of dead sea creatures were carefully impaled on bent pins that served as hooks. Here under the trees, the air was already hot and still despite the early hour, and the surface of the bayou lay flat and silent, broken only by an occasional ring of concentric ripples caused by insects landing on the water and then taking off again. The soft, liquid voices of the boys were the only sounds.

Hooks baited, they cast out into the water, and the bent pins made more ripples as they struck the placid surface. The ripples ran outward from the points of impact and gradually died away. The boys fell silent, content in their companionship and in this time and place.

The water roiled suddenly. Bubbles rose and burst, and following them came the humped shape of something foul, arching up out of the bayou. All the boys let out a common yell of alarm and scrambled backward on the nearby bank. They all managed to hang on to their fishing poles, despite their fear.

The shape in the water moved slowly toward shore. One of the boys, the tallest and oldest--who, because of those things, felt that he had to be the bravest as well--stepped forward tentatively. His eyes narrowed as he saw that the mysterious hump-backed shape was covered with some sort of cloth. A moment later, he realized it had to be a shirt.

"Hey! That be a man in the water!"

Now the boys clustered closer to the edge of the bayou. Part of the mystery had been explained. Young as they were, all of them had seen death before. It was a part of everyday life for those who lived on and around the waters of the great river and the gulf into which it flowed. They were Delta boys, and they knew death, all right, and feared it only slightly.

The oldest and tallest boy pulled his line from the water and cast out toward the floating shape. It took him a couple of tries, but then he hooked the shirt. "He'p me pull 'im in," he told his friends, and eager hands reached for the line. "Careful, careful," he cautioned. "This here line, he ain't gon' hold too much weight."

Slowly, they hauled the floating thing toward the shore. A few moments later, it bumped against the bank, and the tallest, oldest boy said, "Hold 'im there. Maurice, Richard, you gimme a hand."

The three of them reached down and caught hold of the waterlogged shirt and pulled. An arm broke from the water and flopped onto the bank. The hand at the end of that arm was as white and pale as the belly of a gar. The flesh had been gnawed in places by small fish.

The boys pulled harder and the man's head came out of the water, his long, lank hair streaming water as it fell over the empty holes where his eyes had been. All the boys felt a fresh surge of fear as they saw the tattered, incomplete face of the dead man. But they kept pulling, the weight of the body heavy from all the water it had absorbed, and the other arm came out, and the torso down to the waist, and then the boys fell backward on the bank because that was all that was left of the man and there was nothing to hold him in the water. They let go of him and scrambled away, and all of them looked in horror at the ragged place where the corpse ended, and knew that more than likely a gator had chomped the man plumb in two.

Released of their hold, the half of the dead man that they had pulled from the bayou rolled from its side onto its back in a ghastly semblance of life. A shaft of sunlight, green-tinged from the thick vegetation through which it filtered, struck the chest of the dead man and reflected dully from the bit of tarnished metal that was pinned there. The tallest, oldest boy saw the reflection and edged closer to take a look, the need to be the leader once again overcoming his fear. He put his hands on his bony knees, bare beneath the cut-off trousers that were his only garment, and his lips moved a little as he read the words engraved on the piece of metal. He'd had enough schooling so that he could make some sense of them, though he had no idea why such a man--or at least, part of such a man--had been floating in the bayou.

The dead man was wearing the badge of a United States deputy marshal.

CHAPTER 2

"You a superstitious man, Custis?" asked Billy Vail as he dropped a thin sheaf of papers on his desk.

Longarm cocked his right ankle on his left knee and leaned back in the leather chair in front of Vail's desk. He took a puff on the cheroot he had just lit and then said, "Not so's you'd notice, I don't reckon."

The chief marshal, whose pink face and balding pate made him appear deceptively cherubic, said, "Black cats don't scare you when they cross your path?"

Longarm frowned, wondering what in tarnation Vail was getting at. "I ain't overly fond of the critters," he said, "but I don't run home and stay in bed for the rest of the day whenever I see one. Leastways not alone." He grinned, but Vail didn't seem to notice.

"Good, because I'm sending you to New Orleans."

Longarm didn't see what that had to do with superstition. True, there were parts of Louisiana that could be downright spooky: the swamps and the bayous and those mossy old plantation houses that had been abandoned to rot with only ghostly memories left to inhabit them. Longarm had never considered himself an overly imaginative man, but as he thought of such places, he had to admit that a tiny shiver went through him deep inside. But he had been to Louisiana and New Orleans itself many times, and he certainly didn't feel nervous about going there again.

"That's a little out of our usual territory, ain't it?"

"That's why you're going," said Vail. "I know some of your cases have taken you to New Orleans in the past, but you're not well known there, by any means. You wouldn't be as likely to be recognized as you would be in, say, Cheyenne or Deadwood."

Longarm inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment of his boss's point. "I reckon that's right."

"We got a request from the U.S. marshal's office in New Orleans-"

"For somebody to work on a case incognito, as they say," Longarm concluded for Vail.

"That's right." Vail shoved the stack of papers across the desk toward Longarm. "Take a look at these reports, Custis."

Longarm leaned forward and picked up the documents, then began reading them quickly. He was long since accustomed to scanning official reports like these and picking out the essential elements in them, so that he could mentally digest the important information without wasting any time. In this case, he saw right away that the reports concerned the murder of a U.S. deputy marshal named Douglas Ramsey.

Longarm's eyes narrowed as he read how Ramsey's body had been pulled from a bayou by some boys who had been out fishing before making their grisly discovery. Half of Ramsey's body had been pulled from the bayou, Longarm realized as he read further. That was all that had been left. The rest of the lawman had undoubtedly wound up as alligator bait.

"Damn," breathed Longarm. "That's one hell of a way to go."

"Ramsey didn't die from the alligator attack," said Vail, not needing to ask which part of the report had prompted Longarm's comment. "The coroner down there established that he had been murdered. He had a knife wound in his back, and he was dead before he ever went into the water. Feeding him to the gators was just the killer's way of disposing of the body."

"But it didn't work," Longarm pointed out.

"Nope. For some reason, part of the body was left in the water, and when it filled up with enough gas, it bobbed to the surface just in time to scare a couple of years' growth out of those boys who found it."

Longarm paged through the reports. "According to this, Ramsey was working on a smuggling case. There's always been a heap of smuggling all over that Mississippi Delta. What was important enough about this one to start a federal deputy poking around?"

Vail grimaced as he said, "Politics. You know how corrupt the city government of New Orleans has always been--before the war, during the war, during Reconstruction. And now, a few years after the Reconstructionists were chased out, everything's still just about the same. Only the names and the faces change, and the graft goes on. That's led to a strong reform movement in the city. It never really seems to accomplish much, mind you, except to swap one set of rascals for another, but it's there anyway."

Longarm nodded, even though he wasn't sure where this conversation was going. Vail wasn't really telling him anything he didn't already know.

"One of the reformers managed to get himself appointed as a special prosecutor, and he petitioned the federal government asking for help in cleaning things up. One of the groups he's been going after are the smugglers. The legitimate merchants in New Orleans have always been frustrated because it's easier to buy just about anything from the smugglers, rather than through legal channels."

"So the deputy marshal who wound up in the bayou, this fella Ramsey, he was working for the special prosecutor?"

Vail nodded. "That's right."

"And that's what you want me to do," Longarm said, his voice flat.

"The difference is, nobody in New Orleans knows you, like I said before. You'll be able to find out who's behind the smuggling by working in amongst the people who are carrying it out."

Longarm sighed, unsure what to tell Vail. He had never turned down an assignment outright, and he didn't want to start now. He had a reputation, whether justified or not, for being able to handle the tough cases. Longarm figured he was good at his job. He wasn't given to false modesty. But he knew as well how often luck had been on his side, and from everything he had read in those reports and everything Billy Vail had told him, this case was going to require an extra amount of good fortune.

To gain himself a little extra time to think about it, Longarm said, "I still don't understand why you asked me if I was superstitious, Billy. I reckon Ramsey ran into some bad luck and all, what with being knifed and then half-eaten by a gator, but that was just the doing of the crooks he was trying to chase down."

"I suppose so," Vail said heavily, "but there's one thing that's not in those reports, Custis. The chief marshal in the New Orleans office wired me personally about it when he asked for the loan of my best man. Ramsey's body was found day before yesterday. Yesterday morning, something else turned up on the doorstep of the marshal's office."

Vail looked down at the desk, and Longarm waited in silence for him to go on.

"It was a little cloth doll," Vail said when he finally looked up again. "It was made to look sort of like Ramsey, right down to the badge pinned on his chest. And it was cut in half, Custis. The bottom half was nowhere to be found."

Well, thought Longarm a few days later as he stepped onto the wharf where the riverboat Dixie Belle had tied up, nobody had ever accused him of being overly smart. Some men would have refused this job, even if it had meant turning in their badges. Not him. He had come to the Crescent City to take over the case that had gotten the last man not only killed but also hexed somehow. That crude doll left at the chief marshal's office had been an unmistakable warning. Some kind of evil voodoo magic was at work in New Orleans.

Or at least that was what somebody wanted the authorities to believe. As Longarm had told Billy Vail, he wasn't a superstitious man. He was much more worried about a knife in the back or a hidden gunman than he was about witchcraft.

From Denver he had taken a train to St. Louis, and there boarded the riverboat that had brought him down the Mississippi. Now, as he stepped off the boat, a hot, humid wind hit him in the face. He frowned. As accustomed as he was to the high, dry air of Colorado, it always took him a while to adjust every time a case brought him to the Gulf Coast. He recalled a couple of jobs that had taken him to the Corpus Christi area, over in Texas. Pretty country once you got used to it, but the weather sure made a man sweat.

Longarm ignored the sultry heat as much as he could. Instead of his usual snuff-brown Stetson, he wore a cream-colored planter's hat, and a light-weight suit of the same color in place of his customary brown tweeds. He still wore a vest, though, a silk vest with fancy gold embroidery. His watch chain stretched across the vest, the heavy gold turnip in the left-hand pocket, the wicked little.44 derringer that was attached to the other end of the chain in his right-hand pocket, as usual. The string tie he wore around his neck was a little wider, a little more flamboyant than the one he normally sported. His Winchester and saddle had been left behind in his Denver rooming house for this trip, but the cross-draw rig in which he carried his Colt was belted around his lean waist as usual. Longarm thought he looked like a damn riverboat gambler, and he felt a little seedy and shady.

Which was good, because that was precisely what he was supposed to look like. Nobody was going to mistake him for a lawman in this getup, and he wasn't carrying his badge or his other bona fides either. If he got into any trouble that he couldn't handle himself, he was supposed to seek out that special prosecutor who had requested Uncle Sam's help and use the phrase "Pikes Peak." That would identify him as a federal man.

Longarm had snorted in disgust when Henry, Billy Vail's clerk, had filled him in on these clandestine arrangements. Plenty of times in the past, Longarm had worked incognito, but this was carrying things to a ridiculous extreme.

Still, the more he'd thought about it on the trip to New Orleans, the more he'd figured the precautions just might save his life. The whole thing was squarely in his hands. He had to depend on his own wits to survive and find out the things he needed to know. He was willing to run that risk.

The only baggage he had was the carpetbag that dangled from his left hand. He raised his right hand to hail one of the hacks that had swarmed to the docks for the arrival of the Dixie Belle. One of the carriages drew up beside him, and Longarm stepped up into it, saying to the driver, "The St. Charles Hotel." With a grin, the driver flicked his reins and got the horse moving once more. The St. Charles was the best hotel in the city, and most passengers bound for it could be counted on for a generous tip on top of the fare.

Longarm settled back to enjoy the ride. As always, New Orleans was busy, its cobblestone streets thronged with people and horses and carriages and wagons. The buildings were a blend of the very old and the very new, their architecture a dizzying array of Spanish, French, and American influences. The hack carrying Longarm passed square stone buildings devoid of any personality; they could have been in any city in the country. But next to them were old mansions fronted by white columns dripping with moss, and across the street might be a Spanish palace like an illustration from The Alhambra. Longarm grinned and lit a cheroot. You never knew what you were going to see next in New Orleans.

And that was especially true at this time of year, he thought. Carnival was well under way, with Fat Tuesday--Mardi Gras--fast approaching. Masked, costumed figures pranced among the businessmen and housewives moving along the streets, even at this midday hour. A Harlequin with painted face caught Longarm's eye and waved madly at him as the hack went by. Solemnly, Longarm lifted a hand and touched a finger to the brim of his hat in salute. The Harlequin clasped his hands under his chin and looked devoutly thankful to have been acknowledged.

Longarm shook his head. These folks down here knew how to have a good time, all right, but he thought they sometimes got a mite carried away.

A few minutes later, the hack pulled up in front of the St. Charles. If Longarm remembered right, this was at least the third incarnation of the hotel. After being built in the 1830s, the St. Charles had burned down and been replaced twice. It was a massive, opulent building that took up an entire city block and was surrounded by columns that supported a balcony with an elaborate wrought-iron railing on the second floor. Marble steps led up to the entrance, and a doorman in a uniform that would have been more suited to a naval commodore sprang down those steps to be waiting as Longarm disembarked from the hack.

Taking a five-dollar gold piece from his pocket, Longarm flipped the coin to the hack driver, who plucked it deftly from midair as it spun toward him. "Thank you, suh," the driver said with a broad grin. The tip was extravagant, but that was just the sort of man Longarm wanted people to think he was.

The doorman reached for Longarm's carpetbag. "Take that for you, suh?" he asked.

Longarm shook his head. "No, thanks, I'll manage it myself."

The doorman looked crestfallen and said, "As you wish, suh," but he brightened up when Longarm pressed a gold piece into his hand.

"May be needing some help later, though," said Longarm, and the doorman nodded eagerly.

"Anythin' you want, suh, you jus' let me know."

Longarm went up the steps and into the hotel as more of the Carnival revelers came along the street behind him, tooting horns. The noise faded as soon as he was in the huge, marble-floored lobby of the St. Charles. Instead, a quiet hush prevailed among the potted palms, a silence that sounded somehow like money.

The desk clerk was a thin-faced man with slicked-back hair. He looked at Longarm expectantly, and Longarm said, "I wired for a reservation. Name's Parker." He was using his middle name as an alias, as he sometimes did when he was keeping his real identity hidden.

"Yes, Mr. Parker, of course," said the clerk. "We've been holding the room." He turned the register around and slid it across the highly polished counter toward Longarm. "If you'd just sign in..."

Longarm scrawled C Parker, St. Louis in the space the clerk indicated. The man turned the book back toward him and went on. "How long will you be staying with us, sir?"

"I'm not sure," said Longarm. "Several days anyway."

"Very well. You'll be in Room 312."

The clerk was reaching for a room key on the board behind him when a hand fell softly on Longarm's sleeve and a husky voice said, "You are a very lucky man, m'sieu."

Longarm looked over at the woman who had spoken to him, and saw that she had a black domino mask surrounded by precious stones held in front of her eyes.

That didn't make much difference. He didn't have to see her face to know that she was one of the most beautiful women he had encountered in a long time.

CHAPTER 3

"I certainly am a lucky man," Longarm murmured as he looked at the woman. "Fortunate because I've just made your acquaintance, have I not, my dear?"

"Qui." She held out a hand with slender, graceful fingers, and he took it and bent over it to brush his lips lightly against the back of it. "I am Annie Clement," she said.

"Custis Parker," he told her. "From St. Louis. And I'm very glad I decided to come down here to New Orleans."

She was tall and slender, though curved in all the right places, as the expensive gown she wore displayed enticingly. Most of the deeply tanned valley between her breasts was visible, and Longarm gazed openly at her charms. She had thick, honey-colored hair that fell in waves to her shoulders, and her eyes behind the mask were an intriguing green with light-colored flecks in them, reminding Longarm of foam on an open sea. Her lips were full and red and curved in a smile as she slowly lowered the mask so that Longarm could appreciate the full impact of her beauty.

From the corner of his eye, Longarm saw the hotel clerk lean forward. "Can I help you, Miss Clement?" the clerk asked. Obviously, this lovely young woman was known to him.

Annie turned her head and smiled at the man. "No, thank you, Jack. This gentleman has already introduced himself to me." She linked her arm with Longarm's. "And now he's going to take me into the salon and buy me a drink."

"I'd like that just fine," Longarm told her, "but there's just one thing I need to get cleared up first. By any chance are you a, ah, working girl, Miss Clement?"

Annie laughed lightly at the question, but the desk clerk's eyebrows shot up as he looked scandalized. "Mr. Parker," he said sternly, "the St. Charles does not allow-"

"It's all right, Jack," said Annie. "M'sieu Parker is a guest in New Orleans and cannot be expected to know everything about our fair city." To Longarm, she said, "No, I'm not a soiled dove, M'sieu Parker, if that's what you thought."

"Not really," said Longarm, "but I like to make sure how deep the water is before I go diving in head-first."

"Around here you'll find that the waters are seldom deep... but they can still be treacherous." She steered him toward the arched entrance of the salon. "Now come along with me. Put yourself in my hands."

"That's a mighty appealing prospect," said Longarm, and the comment drew another laugh from her.

Behind them, the desk clerk called out, "I'll have your bag taken up to your room, Mr. Parker."

A waiter in the salon, who clearly knew who Annie was just as the desk clerk had, showed them to a table that was given at least an illusion of privacy by the potted plants that screened it off from the rest of the room. Longarm felt a little as if he had somehow wound up in a jungle. He leaned across the table toward Annie and asked, "What would you like to drink?"

"Wine would be nice."

Longarm repeated the order to the hovering waiter, then added, "Maryland rye for me, Tom Moore if you've got it."

"Indeed we do, sir," said the waiter. "I'll be right back."

While they waited for the drinks, Annie clasped her hands together in front of her on the table and looked over them at Longarm. "And what brings you to New Orleans, M'sieu Parker? Business... or pleasure?"

"Ten minutes ago, I would have said business," replied Longarm, "but that was before I met you, ma'am. Now I would have to say that I'm hoping for a combination of the two."

"How gallant of you. What line of business are you in?"

"Importing and exporting," said Longarm, trying to convey with his tone of voice that even though she was a beautiful woman, he wasn't quite ready to reveal all of his secrets to her just yet.

"How interesting. My brother and I export sugar to your country."

Longarm frowned slightly. "I figured that you lived here in New Orleans. Folks seem to know you pretty well in these parts."

"Oh, we have a house here," she said. "The Clement mansion, on Chartres Street, not far from here. It has been in the family for over a hundred years. But our real home is on Saint Laurent."

Longarm shook his head and said, "Don't reckon I've heard of it."

"It is a small island in the West Indies, where our sugar plantation is located. Paul and I travel here several times each year." A smile lit up Annie's face. "Like you, M'sieu Parker, we attempt to combine business with pleasure."

"A mighty sensible approach," said Longarm. "Here come our drinks."

The waiter placed a glass of wine in front of Annie, then gave Longarm a shot of Maryland rye along with a tumbler of water to chase it. Then the waiter withdrew diffidently, and once again Longarm and Annie had at least the semblance of being alone. They clinked their glasses together, and Annie said, "To New Orleans... and all the possibilities it holds."

"To New Orleans," agreed Longarm. He tossed back the rye, savoring its rich, smoky taste. So far, his trip to the Crescent City had been quite pleasurable.

But no matter what he had told Annie Clement, he was really here for one reason and one reason alone: to find whoever was responsible for the murder of Douglas Ramsey and bring the killer, or killers, to justice.

Annie sipped her wine and then said, "I shall have to introduce you to my brother. I'm sure you and Paul would have much in common."

Longarm wasn't so certain of that, and while this momentary dalliance with Annie had been enjoyable, he didn't want to waste his time meeting some wastrel son of an old, wealthy French family, which was clearly what the Clements were. Still, he didn't want to insult Annie, so he said noncommittally, "That would be nice, but we'll have to see how things work out."

"I know," she said, brightening even more with the idea that had come to her. "Why don't you come out with us tonight? We are going to dine and then visit a place we know on Gallatin Street where we can gamble. Perhaps you have heard of it--the Brass Pelican?"

Longarm was starting to shake his head when Annie added, "It is owned by a man named Millard, Jasper Millard."

Longarm hoped he was able to conceal his surprise. He had heard of Jasper Millard, all right, but certainly not for the same reason that Annie knew the man. Millard's name had been in those reports Longarm had read in Billy Vail's office back in Denver. He was one of the men suspected by the special prosecutor of being involved in the smuggling that was so widespread in the Mississippi Delta.

Longarm had considered using Millard to pick up the trail of Ramsey's murderer. Now, through happenstance, he had a perfect way into Millard's gambling club, and he would be a fool to pass it up.

Or was it happenstance? he asked himself abruptly, still controlling the expression on his face as thoughts raced through his head with lightning-fast speed. Was he being set up somehow? Were the smugglers already on to him, already aware of his true identity? Maybe Annie Clement was just the lovely bait in a deadly trap.

But Longarm didn't think so. He couldn't see how it was possible for any of the criminal element in New Orleans to know who he really was. He had bought his own ticket on the Dixie Belle in St. Louis and paid cash for it, and he'd had no contact with the authorities while he was there. As far as anyone on the riverboat knew, he was exactly what he appeared to be, a businessman, just a little bit disreputable, on his way to New Orleans. And during the hour or so that he had been here in the Crescent City, he was certain he hadn't done anything to give himself away.

Nope, he thought, this was purely a case of serendipity, enjoying the two-bit word he had picked up in his reading at the Denver Public Library near the end of each month when his money was low and his next paycheck was still a few days away.

"That's mighty kind of you," he said to Annie, "and I'll sure take you up on the invitation. If you're certain your brother won't mind, that is."

"Paul will not mind." She rolled her eyes a little. "There is nothing he enjoys more than discussing business, so you will have to promise me, M'sieu Parker, that you will not allow him to monopolize your time all evening. There is dancing as well as gambling at the Brass Pelican, and you must dance with me while we are there."

"I'm looking forward to it," Longarm said, and meant it.

Annie stood up, and Longarm got hurriedly to his feet to help her with her chair. "We will pick you up in our carriage at seven o'clock," she said.

"I'll be ready," he promised.

"Until then, M'sieu Parker... adieu."

Longarm watched her walk away, and he wasn't the only one. Every man in the salon was admiring the graceful sway of her hips. Longarm didn't allow himself to feel any jealousy; he hadn't known her long enough, or well enough, for that.

But he had a hunch that before his trip to New Orleans was over, he was going to.

Longarm went back to the desk to pick up his room key, and while he was there he asked the clerk to have all the local newspapers sent up to his room. The man nodded and said, "Yes, sir, Mr. Parker, I'll take care of that right away." They were eager to please here in New Orleans, thought Longarm as he went upstairs. A purple-jacketed bellboy arrived with the stack of papers a few minutes after Longarm had let himself into Room 312 and found it to be as comfortably appointed as he had expected.

It was also empty, no hidden gunmen lurking there waiting to murder him. Longarm wasn't really anticipating any trouble this soon, but it never hurt to be careful.

He spent an hour or so reading through the newspapers, familiarizing himself with what was going on in New Orleans at the present time. As Billy Vail had told him and the reports had verified, there was a strong reform movement under way, its aim to clean up the corruption in city government and shut down the Louisiana State Lottery, which was also riddled with graft and bribery. The lottery, and the men behind it, had so much power that the entire system was referred to by editorialists in anti-lottery papers as "the Golden Octopus." That situation was interesting, but it wasn't what had brought Longarm to New Orleans. He concentrated instead on stories relating to the smuggling, which seemed as widespread as the lottery. He found several stories which mentioned the special prosecutor whose cries for help had brought him here. The man promised in no uncertain terms that the smuggling rings would be broken up and their hold on the Delta country smashed. Longarm snorted as he read the inflammatory quotes. That was just like a politician, he thought, to stir up a mess and then leave it for somebody else to clean up.

He put the papers aside and went downstairs for a late lunch in the hotel dining room, then returned to his room and slept for several hours. It was likely to be a late night coming up, and Longarm wanted to be well rested.

He changed his shirt, but was wearing the same suit and hat when he came down to the hotel lobby a little before seven o'clock. There was no sign of Annie Clement or her brother yet, so Longarm wandered over to the desk, where the same clerk was still on duty. Longarm had tipped the man handsomely when he asked for the newspapers to be sent up, so he thought it was probably safe to ask a question or two.

"You seem to know Miss Clement pretty well," he said to the clerk, as if he was only making idle talk while waiting. "I'm supposed to dine with her and her brother tonight."

"I'm sure you'll enjoy yourself, Mr. Parker. They're a charming couple." The clerk allowed himself the faintest lift of an eyebrow. "And Miss Clement is undeniably one of the most beautiful women in New Orleans--which is saying a great deal indeed."

"You won't get any argument from me on either of those points, friend," Longarm assured him. "What's her brother like?"

The clerk's tone dropped a little and took on a conspiratorial edge. "Well... he's a man with a certain reputation..."

"As a businessman, you mean," said Longarm, playing dumb. "Miss Clement told me they were sugar exporters."

"Yessss... but I had more in mind. Mr. Clement's reputation as a gambler. And something of a ladies' man."

Longarm grinned, stuck an unlit cheroot in his mouth, and said around it, "So he likes the cards and the ladies, eh?"

"So it's said, sir. I wouldn't really know."

I'll just bet you wouldn't, thought Longarm. Hotel clerks saw the best and the worst of folks, and they generally knew the truth of the matter about as well as anyone this side of the local law--and sometimes better.

"Wonder what Miss Clement was doing here earlier today," Longarm mused aloud. "She said she and her brother have a house here in town."

"Oh, she comes here often," said the clerk, "to have a drink or to dine with us or simply to visit friends that might be stopping here."

Longarm grinned again. "So it was just good fortune that she and I met. Hope that luck stays with me. Miss Clement promised they'd take me to a gambling club called the Brass Pelican. Said it was over on Gallatin Street."

The clerk's eyes widened slightly, and Longarm saw that his shot in the dark had hit something. "You should be careful over there, Mr. Parker," cautioned the clerk. "The Brass Pelican is known for its rather, ah, notorious clientele. All of the establishments on Gallatin Street are sometimes frequented by, ah, undesirables."

That didn't come as any surprise to Longarm since Jasper Millard, the owner of the place, was known to have connections with the smuggling rings that operated along the bayous. He said, "I can take care of myself... and some folks have sort of figured I'm a mite notorious and undesirable myself."

He chuckled, and the clerk joined in uneasily. Longarm wanted to be known as someone who might skirt the law on occasion, and he figured he had just reinforced that image in the clerk's mind. Now, if the right people believed the same thing about him, he might be on his way to discovering what he had come to New Orleans to find out.

At that moment, the doors of the hotel opened and Annie Clement came in, followed by a tall, thin man in evening clothes, a cape, and a top hat. Annie was gorgeous in a shimmery, dark gray gown trimmed with white fur, and her face lit up with a smile as she saw Longarm. She held out both hands as she came toward him, and he took them and squeezed warmly.

"M'sieu Parker, how wonderful to see you again," she said. "I want you to meet my brother. Paul, this is M'sieu Parker, who is visiting New Orleans from St. Louis."

"Custis Parker," Longarm said, introducing himself as he shook hands with Paul Clement.

The Frenchman had a dark, narrow face that seemed to fall naturally into sardonic, half-amused lines. He was clean-shaven and had dark, curly hair under the top hat. "I am pleased to make your acquaintance, M'sieu Parker," he said. "My dear sister has told me so much about you, I find it difficult to believe that the two of you met only today."

"It's the truth," said Longarm. "Miss Annie here was the first one to really welcome me to New Orleans. I'm grateful to her for making me feel at home--and for inviting me along with the two of you tonight. I hope I'm not being an imposition."

Clement waved a hand languidly. "Of course not! We're perfectly happy to have you accompany us. As I believe Anme told you, we don't actually live here in the city either, so I suppose we're all visitors in New Orleans." He added, "We know it quite well, though."

"I'm glad of that," Longarm told him. "I'm relying on the two of you to be my guides."

"Come along, then, Custis," Annie said, calling him by his given name for the first time as she linked her arm with his. "The night is young, but there is much to see and do."

The three of them went out of the hotel. An elegant black carriage waited at the curb. It had gilt trim and a couple of oil lamps attached to its roof, and six fine black horses were hitched to it. A driver in fancy livery handled the team from the high seat in the front of the vehicle. This was a far cry from some of the mud wagons and Concord stagecoaches he had ridden out West, thought Longarm. For the time being, he was really living high on the hog.

Paul Clement opened the carriage door for his sister, then stood back and gestured for Longarm to board next. Annie patted the upholstered bench next to her. Longarm hesitated for a second, then took the seat. Clement climbed in and settled himself on the opposite bench, so that he would be riding facing backward. He didn't seem to mind.

As the carriage began rolling through the streets of New Orleans, Clement said, "Darling Annie tells me you are an importer and exporter, M'sieu Parker."

"I dabble in a little of this and a little of that," Longarm said vaguely. "To tell you the truth, I'm sort of between enterprises right now. I was told that this was a good town for a man wanting to make a fresh start."

"True, there are boundless opportunities... if a man knows what he wants and is prepared to do whatever is necessary in order to obtain it."

It was shadowy inside the carriage, but Longarm had a feeling Clement was watching him closely. He said coolly, "I've always had a pretty good idea where the road was leading me."

"All roads ultimately lead to the same place, do they not? I speak, of course, of the grave."

Annie said, "That's enough, Paul. I made M'sieu Parker promise that you and he would not spend the entire evening talking business, and I will not allow your morbid philosophy to take over either." She slipped her hand inside Longarm's and leaned closer to him. "I think you will like the restaurant we have selected, Custis. It has the finest food in New Orleans."

"Sounds good," said Longarm, and he hoped it would be. But he doubted seriously if whatever the restaurant had to offer could compete with biscuits and son-of-a-bitch stew and a cup of Arbuckle's on a clear night in the high country under the western stars.

The restaurant was an unprepossessing place on St. Louis Street called Antoine's. As the carriage pulled up in front and Longarm, Annie, and Clement got out, Longarm smelled some of the most enticing aromas he had ever encountered floating out the open windows of the building. Inside, the dining room was rather plainly furnished, but the delicious smells were even stronger. The place was busy too, but Longarm and his companions were immediately shown to one of the few empty tables. Moments later, bowls of steaming soup were brought to them, as if they had been expected--as indeed they had been, Clement confirmed a few moments later. "Annie and I always dine here at least once whenever we are in New Orleans," he added.

Longarm could understand why. The soup, which had bits of crawfish floating in it, was rich and thick and savory. It was followed by tender veal in sauce, steamed vegetables, and loaves of French bread dripping in melted butter. The bread was crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and steam rose from it when Longarm took his first bite. He had to admit that everything was good, and he ate heartily. So did Annie and her brother. Longarm found himself watching Anme approvingly. He liked a woman with a good appetite. Everything was washed down with excellent wines, first white, then red, and by the time the meal was over, Longarm was feeling pleasantly stuffed.

He stifled a groan as he stood up to leave with Annie and Clement. Both of them had packed away as much food and drink as he had, but neither seemed to be feeling any ill effects. Longarm could have used a nap.

He came fully awake as they got back into the carriage and headed for Gallatin Street, however. No longer was he indulging himself, although he seemed as relaxed as ever. Now he was working again, and inside, every nerve was alert.

The carriage turned from St. Louis Street onto Decatur and headed along the river, past the Pontalba Apartment Buildings with their luxurious accommodations, past Jackson Square with its memorial statue of Old Hickory, and along the rear of the old French Market before jogging to the right into Gallatin Street itself.

Longarm had seen places like it before: Front Street in Abilene during the days of Wild Bill Hickok, Allen Street in Tombstone, Ferguson Street in Cheyenne. It was an area of saloons, gambling dens, whorehouses, dance halls, pawnshops, and seedy offices used by businessmen who were no more honest than they had to be. Women in frilly nightclothes leaned over the balcony railings of the buildings the carriage passed, calling to potential customers on the street below. Men stood on corners, hawking goods that were undoubtedly stolen. Dark-mouthed alleys opened frequently from the street, and the noises that came from them gave ample warning that it would not be wise to venture down them alone. Longarm glanced in one window as they passed and saw a redheaded woman standing there nude, her lush body on display in the light of a lantern that hung above her head. Her breasts were large, the nipples rouged, and one hand was between her legs as she caressed herself. Annie was looking in the same direction, but if she saw the lewd spectacle, she gave no sign of it.

"Ah, here we are," Clement announced a few moments later. "The Brass Pelican."

The outside of the gambling club appeared to be better kept up than many of the buildings in the area. It was a low brick structure with a pair of whitewashed columns flanking the heavy entrance door. Above the door, mounted on an iron rod that protruded from the building, was the statue that gave the club its name. Longarm had to admit that the sculpture was an accurate rendering of a pelican. The bird's wings were lifted, as if it was ready to take off, but its long legs were still curled underneath its body. The huge beak was pointed down at the short flagstone walk leading to the entrance, and the pelican appeared to be casting a skeptical eye at the patrons who passed back and forth beneath it.

Clement stepped down from the carriage first, followed by Longarm. Longarm hesitated, unsure whether or not he should offer his hand to Annie or allow her brother to assist her down. She held out both hands as she stepped through the carriage door, however, so both Longarm and Clement had one to grasp. She linked arms with them and walked between them up to the door of the Brass Pelican.

A huge black man wearing a uniform similar to that of the doorman at the St. Charles Hotel was on duty there. He greeted the newcomers with a broad smile and said, "Good evenin', Mr. Clement, suh. And to you as well, ma'am."

"Good evening, Luther," replied Clement. "This is Mr. Parker. He's our guest for the evening."

"Yes, suh." The doorman nodded respectfully to Longarm. "How do, Mr. Parker."

Longarm returned the man's nod, then walked into the club with Annie and her brother as Luther opened the door. The sound of someone playing a piano quite loudly came to Longarm's ears, which was no surprise. Just about every saloon and gambling joint in the world had a piano player, no matter where it was. In this case, though, the fella pounding on the ivories actually seemed to have some musical talent, and the piano itself was almost in tune. That was pretty rare.

The air was thick with noise. The music, the laughter of women, the clatter of the roulette wheel and the rattle of dice, the almost prayerful words of the gamblers as they called on this spin of the wheel or this throw of the dice to come out in their favor for a change, the exultant shouts and the bitter curses when the outcome of the play was determined ... it was all familiar to Longarm. He had heard it in a hundred saloons, in a hundred different towns. And the smells were the same too. Tobacco, whiskey, spilled beer, cheap perfume, unwashed human flesh. Not really a pleasant odor, but one to which a man could become accustomed, and a part of him would miss it all, the noise and the stink both, whenever he found himself in a place that was quiet and clean and well lighted.

Longarm put a cheroot in his mouth and clamped his teeth down on it. A place like this always made him feel as if he had just come home.

Most of the big main room was taken up with gambling tables and apparatus, he saw as he looked around. But there was a tiny dance floor, as Annie had mentioned earlier in the day, tucked away in the left rear corner. A mahogany bar ran down the right-hand side of the room, and at the end of it was a door that no doubt led into some back rooms where other business was conducted.

Standing at the end of the bar near the door was a tall, burly man whose head was as hairless as a billiard ball. He wasn't old, however. Longarm judged the man's age to be about the same as his own. He wore a dark, conservative suit that might have belonged to a banker or a lawyer instead of a saloonkeeper and proprietor of a gambling den. He chewed on a long, fat cigar and toyed with an empty shot glass as his eyes surveyed the place, constantly on the move. Longarm didn't have to be told who he was. The bald man's attitude alone was enough for Longarm to peg him as Jasper Millard.

Sure enough, as soon as he had checked his hat and cape, Paul Clement headed straight for the bald man, leaving Longarm and Annie to follow him across the crowded room. Clement raised a hand in greeting, and even over the clamor, Longarm heard him say, "Good evening, Jasper! Busy night tonight."

"Always," grunted Millard as Longarm and Annie came up to join him and Clement. "The Good Lord willing, it'll stay that way." He looked at Longarm with shrewd, dark eyes. "Who's your new friend?"

Longarm stuck out his hand, and without waiting for Clement to introduce him, he said, "Name's Custis Parker, down from St. Louis to do a little business."

Millard took Longarm's hand in a bone-crushing grip. Longarm gave as good as he got and saw a flicker of respect in Millard's eyes. "Just exactly what line of work are you in, Mr. Parker?" asked Millard.

"Just exactly whatever'll make me the most money," said Longarm with a grin. "That's the best kind of business, don't you think?"

"Damn right." Millard angled his bald head toward the bar. "Have a drink on me, Parker. And you two as well, of course, Clement."

Longarm was doubtful that Annie would be able to get a glass of wine here in this rough-and-tumble spot, but the bartender surprised him, holding out the delicate crystal glass to her without even being told what the lady wanted to drink. Clearly, this wasn't her first visit to the Brass Pelican either. Clement asked for bourbon, while Longarm ordered Maryland rye, as always. Both requests were quickly honored.

As Longarm drank, he studied Jasper Millard with the same frankness with which the bald man was appraising him. Millard practically radiated power, and his eyes glittered with ruthlessness. Longarm had already spotted several bouncers lounging around the room, but he had no doubt that Millard could handle troublemakers every bit as well as his hired help.

Holding his glass of bourbon, Clement turned away from the bar and said excitedly, "I'm going to try my luck at the roulette wheel. Come along, Annie."

"You know, Paul," said Annie, "there might be other things which I wished to do more than watch you gamble."

"But you are my lucky charm!" Clement reached out and grabbed Annie's hand. "Come, cherie, the wheel awaits."

Annie gave Longarm a look of resignation and allowed her brother to steer her away from the bar and toward one of the roulette wheels. Clement crowded up to the table and reached into an inner pocket for a wallet. He took several bills from it and dropped them on the table as the croupier prepared to spin the wheel. He was still clasping Annie's hand, and he grinned over at her excitedly as the wheel spun and the ball danced madly around it.

Longarm stayed at the bar and sipped his rye, but he turned so that he could watch the Clements while he did it. With a glance at Millard, he said, "Paul seems to know how to enjoy himself, but I'm not sure he should be waving that billfold around. Never know who might be watching. M'sieu Clement--and his money--are perfectly safe in here," said Millard, "and on the street outside too. That wouldn't be true of most people, mind you. But the denizens of Gallatin Street know that he and his sister are my friends. They know that if anyone were to harm them in any way, I would know who the guilty party was within an hour, and my vengeance would be terrible to behold."

"You mean they've got friends in high places, so to speak."

Millard smiled humorlessly. "Most people would consider my associates and me to be friends in low places."

Longarm shrugged and said, "All a matter of perspective, I reckon."

"You're a Westerner," Millard said as he came closer to Longarm. "I can tell."

"I've spent considerable time west of the Mississippi," admitted Longarm, "but I was born and raised in West-by-God Virginia. Started to drift and make my own way after the war."

"You fought in that unfortunate conflict?"

"Yep, but don't ask me on which side. I tend to disremember."

Millard chuckled. "As do I, sir, as do I. There are some allegiances a businessman can't afford to maintain, however much he might like to."

Longarm nodded sagely and said nothing. At the roulette table, Paul Clement threw back his head and grimaced as the ball dropped into a slot and the wheel slowly came to a stop. Longarm heard Clement say, "That's always the way. You play the black, and the red comes up." Beside him, Annie just looked bored. She cast occasional glances in Longarm's direction.

With a sly grin, Millard commented, "Mademoiselle Clement seems a bit taken with you, my friend."

Longarm was about to ask Millard when they had become friends, but he never got around to it.

The sudden screams and the deafening bang of gunshots sort of distracted him.

CHAPTER 4

Longarm twisted instinctively toward the entrance, where the unexpected disturbance was coming from. He had worn his gun tonight, like most of the other men in the Brass Pelican, and his hand flashed toward the butt of the Colt as he saw the massive doorman Luther stumble into the building, clutching his belly as blood welled between his fingers. The crowd happened to part so that Longarm had a good view of the wounded man, who had obviously been gut-shot.

"Look out, Mr. Millard!" shouted Luther. "Royale-"

A man in a derby hat with a bandanna tied over the lower half of his face stepped into the club behind Luther and brought up a pistol, aiming it at the back of the doorman's head. The weapon cracked spitefully, and Luther jerked and pitched forward, dead before he hit the floor, the back of his head a gory mess from the bullet that had just bored into his brain.

"Son of a bitch!" snapped Millard. He practically dived for the area behind the bar and came up with a sawed-off shotgun.

The scattergun would be worse than useless in these close, crowded quarters, thought Longarm, and he hoped Millard had the sense not to fire it. Too many innocent people would be hurt if he did. The room was filled with chaos now as more of the masked, derby-hatted figures rushed into the club brandishing guns. The crowd of gamblers tried desperately to get out of the line of fire. Some dived under tables while others stampeded wildly, trampling anyone smaller who got in their way.

Longarm glanced toward the roulette table where Annie and Paul Clement had been a moment earlier. He saw no sign of either of them in the mob and hoped they hadn't fallen. If they had, they might be stomped to death. More shots blasted out as Millard's men opened fire on the intruders. Luckily, the bouncers were armed with pocket pistols, but there was still way too much lead flying around to suit Longarm. He saw an expensively gowned woman go spinning off her feet as a stray bullet struck her in the shoulder. As she fell, she screamed thinly and clutched at the sudden bloodstain on her dress.

Men jostled Longarm roughly from both sides. He realized he had to get out of this press of terrified people if he intended to do anything about the situation. Though he knew it would make him a better target for anybody who wanted to take a potshot at him, he slapped his free hand on the bar top and vaulted onto the hardwood. His boots thudded on the mahogany as he ran nimbly along the bar toward the front of the room, bringing him closer to the marauders in derby hats.

The aim of the intruders seemed to be to wreak as much havoc as possible. While some of them were fighting with Millard's bouncers, others were overturning gaming tables and smashing light fixtures. A couple of them grabbed one of the women and literally ripped the clothes off her body, leaving her naked and screaming. Others who wielded clubs and blackjacks waded into the Brass Pelican's patrons, battering several men to the floor. Longarm stopped and snapped a shot at one of the raiders, who was about to bring a hobnailed boot down on the skull of a man who had been knocked off his feet. The stomping would have almost surely been fatal had not Longarm's bullet caught the man in the body and sent him to the floor.

The shot brought return fire, and Longarm crouched as slugs whipped around his head. He triggered twice more and saw one of the gunmen go down. The ebb and flow of the riot sent a knot of people surging between Longarm and the men who were shooting at him, and he used the momentary respite to lunge farther along the bar.

More gunshots from the rear of the club made him throw a glance over his shoulder. He bit back a curse as he saw that more of the masked men were pouring into the place from the back rooms, where they had undoubtedly gained entrance through an alley door. The patrons and employees of the Brass Pelican were caught in a cross fire now.

Millard still stood near the end of the bar. He had traded the sawed-off shotgun for a bung-starter, and he used it to slash at the heads of any of the intruders who came within arm's reach. However, he didn't see the two men who were coming up behind him, guns poised to ambush him.

"Millard!" bellowed Longarm, his voice cutting through the chaos of the attack. "Get down!"

Millard's eyes widened as he saw Longarm twisting back toward him. Longarm threw himself flat on the bar as Millard ducked. That gave Longarm a clear shot at the men who were trying to kill the club owner. He triggered twice, the explosions coming so close together they almost sounded like one blast. The two intruders rocked back as Longarm's bullets thudded into their chests.

That was all Longarm had time to see, because in the next instant hands grabbed him and pulled him off the bar. He felt himself falling and reached out desperately, knowing that if he tumbled all the way to the floor, he would probably never get up again. His fingers snagged the vest of the man who had jerked him off the bar. His fall broken, Longarm lashed his empty Colt across the face of his opponent and felt the man's nose pulp under the blow. Warm blood spurted across the back of Longarm's hand.

He got his feet underneath him and struck again, clubbing at the man's head with the gun. The intruder's derby kept the blow from landing with full force, but it was still powerful enough to make the man's eyes roll up in their sockets as he went limp in Longarm's grasp. Longarm let go of him and let him fall.

He turned, looking for another opponent, and saw a knobby fist coming straight at his face. There was no time to avoid it completely, but he moved his head aside enough so that the blow only grazed him and knocked him back against the bar. He was grateful for the solid hardwood, which kept him from falling. He was able to block the next punch and strike back, reversing the Colt in his hand and using the butt to hammer the face of his attacker. The man stumbled backward, moaning, and was lost in the mob.

The booming of shotguns and the shrilling of whistles assaulted Longarm's ears. He looked toward the entrance and saw blue-uniformed figures bulling their way inside. The New Orleans police had finally arrived. At the sight of the police, the masked men broke off their wave of death and destruction and headed for the back door of the club. No one was left to stop their flight. Millard's bouncers were all down, and none of the Brass Pelican's patrons wanted to interfere. They were concerned only with saving their own skins.

There was nothing Longarm could do either. Too many people surrounded him on all sides. The best he could manage was to holster his gun and wait to see what would happen.

And look for Annie and Paul Clement while he was waiting. Concern for their safety gnawed at him.

The sounds of battle died away. The intruders had made good their escape. But they had left carnage and devastation behind them. Several women still sobbed softly, caught in the grip of fear. Men cursed bitterly and did some sobbing of their own.

Millard shoved several men aside and shouldered his way roughly through the crowd to confront one of the policemen. The badge-toter was as burly as Millard himself, and he had a bulldog face and a thick graying mustache. Millard glowered at him and said loudly, "Damn it, Denton, you and your boys sure as hell took your time about getting here!"

The officer was just as angry and stubborn as Millard. "You can't expect us to come into this hellhole you call Gallatin Street with any less than a full squad!" he blazed back at the club owner. "When the report of trouble came in, I rounded up my men and got here as soon as I could."

Millard waved an arm at the wreckage around him. Not soon enough to keep Royale's men from busting in here and ruining my place! They killed Luther, damn it, and who knows who else is dead!"

Longarm turned his back on Millard and the policeman called Denton. He pushed his way through the crowd toward the roulette table where he had last seen Annie and her brother. As he came up to the table, he saw that one leg of it had been broken, so that it tilted sharply down to the floor on one corner. Longarm didn't care about that. What mattered to him was that he saw Annie and Clement standing on the other side of the busted table. Both of them were pale and shaken, but other than that, they appeared to be all right.

Annie cried, "Custis!" when she saw him, and Longarm made his way through the crowd to her side. She clutched at his arm, and he said over the hubbub, "Are you hurt?"

She shook her head. "No, Paul and I are fine. How about you?"

"Knocked around a mite, but I'll be fine."

"That is what happened to us too, M'sieu Parker," said Clement as he slid a protective arm around Annie's shoulders. "Annie was very frightened."

"You got any idea who those fellas were?" asked Longarm. "I heard the name Royale a couple of times. I guess it's a name anyway."

Clement nodded grimly. "It is indeed. A nom de guerre, to be sure, belonging to one of the cleverest criminals currently operating in New Orleans."

Longarm filed away that bit of information with interest. If Millard was actually connected with one of the smuggling rings, as rumor had it, then this attack tonight had likely been carried out by a rival gang. What Clement had said about the individual known as Royale supported that theory.

Nodding toward the bar, Longarm asked, "Who's the badge-toter jawing with Millard?"

"That's Captain Denton of the New Orleans police," said Clement.

"Appears the two of 'em don't get along very well."

Clement summoned up a laugh. "Captain Denton fancies himself an honest man, which makes him something of a rarity on the New Orleans force. He'd like nothing better than to close down the Brass Pelican for good. However, Jasper has friends who are well connected at City Hall, which makes it impossible for Denton to really do anything to him. I believe the situation frustrates the poor captain to no end."

Longarm told himself to remember what Clement had just said about Captain Denton. If Longarm was in bad enough trouble and needed a helping hand from an honest lawman, he might have to reveal his true identity to someone like Denton... and then hope that he would be believed. Supposedly, only the special prosecutor was aware of the password "Pikes Peak" and what it signified.

Beside the bar, Denton turned away from Millard with a curt, angry gesture and began gathering his men, who had spread out through the club with their shotguns. Unfortunately, anyone who might need a greener used on them was long gone. Denton and the other officers began trooping out of the club. Pausing near the door, Denton pointed his shotgun toward Luther's sprawled, bloody corpse and growled, "Bring him along for the undertaker."

A couple of the policemen bent and grasped Luther's fancy coat, which was now sodden with blood, and began dragging him out of the club. An ugly red and gray stain was left on the sawdust-littered planks of the floor.

"Hey!" Millard called to Denton. When the captain looked back, Millard pointed to the two men Longarm had killed. "What about these bastards?"

"I'll send a wagon for them," replied Denton wearily.

"The hell you will! I want 'em out of here now."

Denton sighed and motioned for more of his men to retrieve the other two corpses. With grunts and groans of effort, all of the bodies were soon hauled out of the place. Other men had suffered wounds in the melee, but none of them had proven fatal. Some of the women who worked for Millard were already patching up cuts and scrapes and bullet holes with practiced ease that spoke of repeated trouble in the club. The woman whose clothes had been torn off of her was still sobbing, but at least she was no longer naked. Someone had wrapped a frock coat around her, and her escort was leading her to one of the tables that was still upright and undamaged.

Millard jumped up onto the bar, the ease with which he did so rivaling that of Longarm's earlier move. He lifted his hands and shouted for attention. "All right, folks, it's all over! No need to worry anymore! We're going to set things right as quick as we can, so that you can go back to enjoying yourselves! In the meantime, drinks are on the house!"

Some of the club's patrons had been on their way to the door, but they stopped when they heard that offer. Slowly, like the tide running out, nearly everyone in the place began heading toward the bar. Millard hopped down behind it and took off his coat, rolling up his shirt sleeves so that he could help his bartenders pour drinks.

"Well, it shouldn't be long before things are back to normal," Paul Clement said to Longarm. "It's not as if this is the first time Royale's men have caused trouble for Jasper."

"The feud's been going on a long time, eh?" said Longarm.

"For over a year."

Annie shuddered. "This is the only thing I don't like about coming to the Brass Pelican. There's always the possibility of trouble."

"Ah, but that's part of the appeal of the place," said her brother. "One never knows what is going to happen."

"Some uncertainty I can live without!" said Annie.

Clement took her arm and steered her toward the bar. "Let's go get that free drink Jasper offered," he said. "Who knows how long such generosity will last?"

Longarm trailed along behind them, surveying the damage to the club along the way. Several of the tables were broken, and some of the chairs had been reduced to kindling. The green baize top of one of the poker tables had been ripped to shreds with a knife. The light in the place was dimmer than ever, since several of the fixtures had been shattered. It was damn lucky that a fire hadn't broken out, thought Longarm. Broken oil lamps were bad about starting blazes.

As for the human toll, none of Millard's bouncers had escaped unscathed. All of them had minor bullet wounds, or lumps on their heads from the clubbing, or both. Half a dozen or more of the customers had been hurt too. The most serious injury appeared to be the bullet wound in the shoulder suffered by the woman Longarm had seen go down early in the attack. She was being tended to by a heavyset man in evening clothes. Longarm nudged Paul Clement, nodded toward the man, and asked, "Who's that?"

"Doctor Deveraux, of course," replied Clement. "He's one of the best-known physicians in New Orleans."

Longarm grunted. Clearly, a respected doctor thought nothing of being caught in a gambling den like the Brass Pelican. Folks here in the Crescent City had their own way of looking at things, that was for sure. What would have been a scandal in a lot of places was just an everyday occurrence here.

The area in front of the bar was still very crowded, but Longarm and the Clements managed to finally make their way up to the hardwood. They found themselves opposite Jasper Millard, who continued to work alongside his bartenders. He stopped short in what he was doing, however, and pointed a blunt finger at Longarm. "You!" he said. "I want to talk to you."

Longarm felt a moment of... not apprehension, exactly. Puzzlement was more like it. Millard sounded angry.

Instead of harsh words, though, the club owner extended a hand across the bar to Longarm and suddenly grinned. "You saved my life, Parker!" he said. "I just want you to know I won't forget it."

Longarm returned the handshake, which was just as crushing as the one before. He nodded to Millard and said, "I never did like to see a fella being bushwhacked, and that's sure as hell what those gents had in mind."

"Yeah," said Millard as he released Longarm's hand. He frowned in thought for a moment, then jerked his head toward the door at the end of the bar. "Let's go back to my office. Paul, you and Annie can come along too since you're the ones who brought Parker here tonight." Clement looked excited at the prospect of visiting Millard's office. He said, "We'll take you up on that invitation, I

I Jasper. Come along, Annie."

Annie seemed less enthused at the idea of joining Millard in the club owner's office, but as usual, she went along with her brother. Longarm had already figured out that Annie might sometimes give in to impulses of her own when she was alone, as when she had invited him to join them tonight, but whenever she was with Paul, he called the shots. Now that the crush at the bar had lessened somewhat, Millard was able to leave it to his bartenders to handle things. He shrugged back into his coat and led Longarm, Clement, and Annie through the door and into a rear hallway. Several doors opened off the corridor. At the far end was a door leading out to a dark alley. That was the entrance that the second wave of Royale's men had used. From the looks of the splintered jamb, they had kicked their way in. Millard already had a couple of men standing guard there, both of them armed with greeners.

Millard led Longarm, Clement, and Annie through another door, this one opening into a luxuriously appointed office. A large desk was the main item of furniture inside the office, but there were also several chairs upholstered in dark leather. Bookshelves, a liquor cabinet, and another cabinet containing several shotguns lined the walls. A lamp on the desk was burning low, and the shadows were thick in the corners of the room. There were no windows, and Longarm wondered if that was so no one could take a shot at Millard through them. A man like Millard had to lead a worrisome life.

With a sigh, Millard lowered himself into the chair behind the desk and gestured for his guests to take the other chairs. Clement held Annie's chair for her. When everyone was seated, Millard reached into one of the desk drawers and brought out a bottle and some glasses. "This is my best cognac," he said. His eyes lifted to meet Longarm's. "I'd be honored to have you join me, sir. And you and Annie too, of course, Paul."

"Much obliged," said Longarm with a nod. He reached into his vest pocket for a cheroot.

Millard paused in pouring the cognac to gently push a fine wooden box across the desk. "Try one of those, Parker. I get a shipment of them from Havana every month."

Longarm lifted the lid of the box and took out a cigar. He sniffed it appreciatively, broke the band on it, and stuck it in his mouth. As Longarm scratched a lucifer into life, Paul Clement leaned forward and helped himself to one of the cigars too. Millard didn't seem to mind. Longarm puffed on his smoke and got it going, but Clement just tucked his away in a pocket for later. Millard handed glasses of cognac across the desk.

"To timely arrivals," said the club owner as he lifted his drink. Longarm nodded, wondering what Millard meant by that. He found out soon enough, because Millard went on, "I'm talking about you, Parker."

Longarm sipped his cognac and grinned. "You mean the way I was able to stop those two old boys from ventilating you? Hell, that was just good luck."

"And good shooting," grunted Millard. "But I don't really believe in luck, Parker. I believe in Fate. It had to be Fate that brought you here to New Orleans just when I was looking for a man like you."

Longarm frowned. "You mean-"

"I mean, how would you like to go to work for me?"

CHAPTER 5

Longarm tried not to stare across the desk at Millard. Good luck was still playing into his hands. He had wanted to work in amongst the smugglers, and here and now, on his first night in New Orleans, one of the reputed ringleaders was offering him a job.

Once again, Longarm's brain swiftly considered the possibility that he was being set up somehow. He came to the same conclusion he'd come to earlier when he was pondering Annie's invitation to join her and her brother tonight. There was simply no way that anyone in New Orleans could know who he really was. Fortune had merely been on his side so far on this assignment.

Which was enough to make him a mite nervous, he reflected. Good luck couldn't be depended upon, because it could run out at any time with no warning.

Those thoughts ran through his head in a matter of seconds, but the pause was long enough to prompt Millard to ask, "Well? How about it, Parker?"

Longarm nodded. "I appreciate the offer, Mr. Millard. Like I told you, I'm sort of between jobs."

"Does that mean you accept?"

"I sure do," Longarm told him.

"Without even asking what it is I want you to do?"

Longarm grinned easily. "I figure whatever it is, I'll be able to handle it all right."

Millard gave a short bark of laughter and said, "That's what I figure too."

"Despite the trouble, this evening has worked out well all around, I'd say," Paul Clement put in.

Millard scowled. "I don't know that I'd go that far. This business with Royale..." He shook his head, and the hand that wasn't holding the glass of cognac tightened into a fist.

"Tell me about Royale," said Longarm. "I reckon if I'm going to be working for you, I'd best know what's going on."

"I tell my people what they need to know, and that's all," growled Millard. His tone softened a little as he went on. "However, since I'm counting on you to be my right-hand man, Parker, I suppose you do have a right to know about Royale. Hell, I won't be giving away any secrets. Practically the whole town knows that we're enemies, Royale and I."

"Who is he?" asked Longarm.

Millard shook his head. "Nobody really knows. Nobody I've ever talked to has even seen him. I've gotten my hands on a couple of men who worked for him, and even they don't know who he really is or what he looks like." He scowled in frustration. "And I know how to ask questions that get honest answers too."

I'll just bet you do, old son, thought Longarm, but he kept the comment to himself. Aloud, he said, "Sounds like some kind of mystery man."

"Exactly. But as you saw tonight, it's no mystery what Royale wants. He wants to put me out of business."

"You reckon he owns another gambling club?"

"I don't think so." Millard glanced at the Clements. "The Brass Pelican isn't my only business. I have... other enterprises." It was clear that he didn't want to speak too openly about those enterprises in front of Annie and her brother.

Clement took the hint. He drained the last of his cognac and reached for Annie's hand as he stood up. "If it's all right with you, Jasper," he said smoothly, "Annie and I will go back out and see if the roulette wheel is functioning again. You know me--all this talk of business bores me."

Millard waved a hand toward the door. "Sure, go ahead. Just one thing, Paul..." Clement and Annie paused at the doorway. "Yes?"

"Thanks for bringing Parker with you tonight."

"It was our pleasure," said Clement with a grin.

Annie looked at Longarm and said, "I'll see you later, I suppose, Custis."

"I reckon you can count on that," Longarm told her sincerely.

Annie and Clement left the office. When they were gone, Longarm leaned back in his chair and puffed on the cigar while Millard refilled their glasses. "Martell," the club owner said, indicating the label on the cognac bottle. "The finest in the world. I bring it in from France."

"The same way you bring in cigars from Cuba?" guessed Longarm.

Millard's quick grin told Longarm he was right. "I don't pay customs duty on either one of them, if that's what you mean. They come in through the Delta."

"So one of those other business enterprises you mentioned is smuggling."

"That bother you?" asked Millard bluntly.

Longarm took another puff on the cigar and shook his head. "Nope. Not even a little bit."

"When I saw how handy with that gun you are, I knew you were the sort of man who wouldn't let anything stand in his way. That's good." Millard sipped his cognac and looked intently at Longarm over the glass, then added, "As long as you're not too ambitious."

"When I take a man's money, I back him all the way," Longarm said with conviction.

"Good." Millard leaned back in his own chair. "Royale runs a smuggling ring, just like I do. He'd like to see me dead, and I'm convinced that raid tonight was just a cover for an attempt to kill me. I was supposed to die in the confusion."

Longarm nodded slowly. "I can see that. Those two gunmen came straight for you while the rest of 'em were raising hell."

"That's right. And if the attempt failed--which, thanks to you, it did--at least Royale hurt me a little by damaging my club."

Longarm had no doubt that Millard was right, but he said, "Do you know for sure that Royale was behind what happened tonight?"

Millard snorted in disgust. "Of course Royale was behind it. Nobody else moves a fraction as many goods through the Delta as Royale and I do. Our organizations control the smuggling now. If Royale could get rid of me, he'd have the whole thing right in his hands." The club owner shrugged his burly shoulders. "Besides, Royale's men always wear those derbies and have masks over their faces. It's like a badge."

"Speaking of badges, how does Captain Denton feel about Royale?"

With a harsh laugh, Millard replied, "Denton hates Royale as much as he hates me. He'd like to see Royale behind bars--or dead, same as me. That stupid bastard actually thinks he can clean up New Orleans if he works at it hard enough." Millard laughed again. "But it'll never happen. This town doesn't want to be cleaned up. Nobody really gives a damn about the law."

That was where he was wrong, thought Longarm. Somebody cared about the law--even if he was from out of town.

"So Denton can't bother you because of your connections, and he can't get to Royale either, I'd wager. Any trouble from any of the other local lawmen, or any federal boys?" The way the conversation had been going, Longarm didn't think it was too much of a risk to pose the question. After all, if he was going to work for Millard, he had a right to know what he was getting into.

Millard shook his bald head. "Nothing to speak of. Nothing we can't handle."

"Sounds good," said Longarm with a nod, concealing his disappointment. But it would have been too much to hope for if Millard had upped and confessed to killing Douglas Ramsey just like that. Still, there had been a chance that he would, since he was feeling expansive and grateful to Longarm for saving his life.

But maybe Millard wasn't responsible for Ramsey's murder. Maybe Royale or some of his men had been the ones who had put the knife in Ramsey's back and then dumped him in the bayou. Longarm would just have to keep poking around until he knew for sure, and the unexpected foothold he had gained in Millard's organization was the perfect place for him to start.

Millard tossed back the rest of his drink and set the empty glass on the desk with a thump. "I'm going down in the Delta tomorrow," he said. "I want you to come with me, Parker. I'll show you the ropes, and it won't take long for you to catch on to the way we do things down here."

Longarm finished his cognac. "I'll be looking forward to it," he said honestly. "You expecting any more trouble from Royale?"

Millard grinned coldly across the desk at him. "I don't know. But if we run into any, you'll be there to handle it, won't you?"

Most of the damage in the main room of the gambling club had been put right with surprising speed. The broken tables had been propped up, a cloth had been spread over the poker table with the slashed top, and the games were under way again when Longarm and Millard left the office a few minutes later.

Paul Clement had left the roulette wheel for the blackjack table. Annie was still at his side, one of her hands held firmly in both of his except when he had to let go to push chips up to the betting line. Unobtrusively, Longarm watched him play several hands. Clement was a plunger, Longarm decided, unable to stay even when the odds were on his side. On nearly every hand, he leaned forward and said in a breathless voice, "Hit me," succumbing to the siren call of the next card, whatever it might be. Not surprisingly, he lost more than he won, though he hit blackjack a couple of times and exclaimed happily.

Annie glanced over her shoulder and saw Longarm watching them. She slipped her hand out of her brother's grip, and Clement looked over at her sharply, almost angrily. Longarm saw her say something in his ear, and after a second, he nodded grudgingly. Annie walked toward Longarm with a smile.

"I told Paul that all the excitement earlier has given me a headache," she said as she came up to him. "I thought perhaps you would accompany me back to our mansion."

"I'd be happy to," Longarm told her, "but isn't that something your brother really ought to do?"

Annie made a face. "Paul would never forgive me if I dragged him away from his games of chance so early in the evening. He probably won't stop playing until the sun comes up. You can take me home, then return here or go back to the St. Charles, whatever you wish. The driver will come back here to get Paul later."

Longarm nodded. "All right. Let's go."

Annie stopped long enough to get her lacy shawl from the cloak room. She wrapped it around her shoulders as they stepped outside. The evening's festivities on Gallatin Street were still in full swing. The warm night air was full of tinny music and shrill laughter.

The black carriage was waiting nearby at the curb. Longarm helped Annie in, then said to the wizened driver, "The lady wants to go home. I'll be going with her, then back to the St. Charles." He swung up into the carriage, and was about to sit on the front seat when Annie said, "Sit beside me, Custis."

"Always glad to oblige a lady," he said with a grin as he settled down on the rear seat next to her.

"I'm very glad to hear that." Her voice had an undertone that was almost a purr.

Almost instantly, Longarm felt himself growing aroused. Annie was sitting close enough to him that he could feel the warmth of her body, and her perfume, subtle yet insistent, filled his senses. She reached over and caught hold of his hand, twining her fingers with his.

"I am so glad I met you today, Custis, and that you were with us tonight at the club. When those horrible men came bursting in, I was frightened, and yet... I knew I would be all right. I knew you wouldn't allow any harm to come to me."

She was giving him more credit than he was due. In the confusion of the raid, with all those bullets flying around, almost anything could have happened to her, and likely there wouldn't have been a damned thing he could have done to stop it.

But she had come through the violence all right, and if she wanted to think that he was partially responsible for that, he supposed it wouldn't hurt anything. "I'm glad I was there too," he told her. "It means a lot to me, the way you and your brother have sort of taken me under your wing."

She laughed, but didn't sound particularly amused. "You won't need our help anymore, now that you're working for Jasper Millard. He's one of the most powerful men in New Orleans."

"Him and that fella Royale, huh?"

A tiny shudder ran through Annie's body. "Don't even talk about Royale. He... he frightens me."

"But you don't have any real connection with Millard except patronizing his club, do you?" asked Longarm.

"No, of course not, but you saw what happened tonight. As long as Jasper and Royale are at each other's throat, no one in New Orleans is really safe."

She had a point, thought Longarm. He had seen other towns where two or more factions of owlhoots had been feuding, and what usually happened was that more innocent folks were killed in the fighting than members of the opposing outlaw gangs. It was the same here in New Orleans. Everyone was at risk while the war between Millard and Royale continued.

He would just have to see what he could do about that, Longarm decided. Though his real job was to find out who killed Douglas Ramsey, maybe at the same time he could bust up the smuggling rings and put an end to the rivalry between Millard and Royale. Of course, somebody else would probably just come along and take their places later, but that was out of Longarm's hands. He couldn't be responsible for ridding the world of all its crooks and killers.

After a few minutes, the carriage reached Chartres Street and rolled through an open gate of black wrought iron onto a circular drive paved with flagstones. It led up to the entrance of a large, three-story brick house. Wooden pillars bordered a veranda that ran the length of the house. The pillars supported a balcony with moss dripping from its railing. The mansion was old but well kept, Longarm saw with a glance as the carriage came to a stop.

He opened the door and stepped down, then turned back to assist Annie. As she took his hand, she whispered, "Come in with me."

Longarm wasn't particularly surprised. All during the carriage ride, if not before that, he had been able to tell that Annie was attracted to him. The feeling was mutual. But he murmured softly, "I told the driver to take me back to the hotel."

"Ask him to return to the Brass Pelican and wait for Paul," she said. "Tell him that you will walk back to the St. Charles."

The lie seemed pretty apparent to Longarm, but at least it would allow Annie to keep up appearances. He moved to the front of the carriage and looked up at the driver. "You can head on back to the club and wait for Mr. Clement, old son," he told the man. "It's a nice night, so I think I'll walk over to my hotel from here."

"As you wish, suh," said the driver as he took up his reins once more. "Good evenin' to yuh."

With a gentle flick of the reins, the driver got the team moving again, and the carriage rolled on around the drive and back through the gate onto Chartres Street. Longarm turned around and looked at Annie, who was standing at the door underneath the small lamp that had been left burning there. In its soft yellow glow, she looked incredibly lovely. She lifted a hand, held it out toward Longarm.

He went to her, clasping her hand, and she led him into the house.

Inside, the mansion matched its opulent exterior. Hand in hand, Longarm and Annie moved through a foyer with gilt-edged mirrors on both walls that opened into a large, airy room with a high ceiling. When Longarm glanced up, he saw that the chamber extended all the way to a large domed skylight in the mansion's roof. A curving staircase with an alabaster rail led up to a balcony that ran completely around the center of the room. He could see a third-floor balcony as well. Annie tugged him toward the stairs, a little impatient now.

"I thought I was supposed to walk back to the St. Charles," he said dryly.

"Don't toy with me, Custis," she said. "We both know why I asked you to come in. My bedroom is on the third floor."

"Usually in cases like this, it's the lady who says something about how things are moving sort of fast."

She laughed, a liquid, sensual sound. "As I told you, don't toy with me. I want you, Custis Parker, and I intend to have YOU."

As they reached the bottom of the staircase and Annie took a step up, Longarm said, "Your brother..."

She whirled back toward him, her features taut and unreadable. "Don't talk about Paul," she said. "Don't even mention him. Not tonight."

Longarm frowned. He wasn't sure what had come over Annie. Earlier in the evening, she had seemed devoted to her brother, even though she was a little bored by his gambling. Now she acted almost as if she hated him.

But that was none of his business, Longarm told himself. He had been lucky enough to meet this beautiful woman, and now she wanted him in her bed and was completely unabashed about her desires. His chance acquaintance with Annie and Paul Clement had already paid a considerable dividend in the job he had landed with Jasper Millard. Now he seemed to be on the verge of collecting another dividend.

The fact that she was standing on the first step while he was still on the floor brought their faces close to the same level. Suddenly, Annie leaned forward, and her lips found his in an urgent kiss. Longarm slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her to him.

His tongue darted between her lips as she opened herself to him, and he explored the hot, wet cavern of her mouth for several moments. Her tongue replied in kind, circling his, fencing with it. Her breasts prodded softly against his chest, and her arms tightened around his neck as she hugged him.

They stood that way for a long moment, straining against each other. Then Annie broke the kiss. "Come!" she said urgently. She reached down to catch hold of his hand. "Come with me."

Longarm went.

A few minutes later, he found himself in an elegantly furnished bedchamber on the third floor of the mansion. There were lace curtains on the windows and a thick rug on the floor. The room was dominated by the large, four-poster, canopied bed that was its main piece of furniture, but there was also a long dressing table with a mirror above it and a tall wardrobe with gold handles on its doors. Annie tugged him eagerly toward the bed.

Longarm stopped her and turned her around so that her back was toward him. His fingers went to the buttons of the gown and began unfastening them. With all the buttons behind her like this, he knew she hadn't done up this gown herself; she must have had help, and that made him wonder about servants. He leaned closer to her and whispered into her ear, "Any hired help in the house?"

She closed her eyes and leaned back against him as she shook her head. "They've all gone home for the night. None of them stay here. We have the house to ourselves."

Longarm went back to what he was doing, which was unfastening the final button in the row that ran down her spine. He spread the dress open, revealing the smooth, honey-colored expanse of her back all the way down to the sensual twin dimples just above the cleft of her buttocks. He gathered up the thick masses of her hair and lifted them to expose the nape of her neck, and that was where he planted his lips in a long, lingering kiss that slowly slid down her back. Annie shivered and made a noise deep in her throat. He heard her whisper his name.

When he reached the small of her back, he stopped and let his tongue play over the smooth skin and downy hairs he found there. After a moment in which her breathing became noticeably heavier, Annie moved a step away from him and turned. Longarm stayed where he was, kneeling on the soft rug beside the bed. He looked up at her as she pulled the dress over her shoulders and then slowly lowered it in front of her. Her firm, apple-shaped breasts came into view. They rode high and proud on her chest, and the large brown nipples were pebbled and erect.

She pushed the gown on past her hips, taking her petticoats with it. As the frilly undergarments fell around her ankles, she stood nude before him. Longarm gloried in her loveliness, his heart beating heavily in his chest. He stood slowly and stepped over to her. She held out her arms to receive him. He kissed her again, savoring the erotic sensation of cradling her naked form against him while he was still fully dressed.

That situation didn't last long. Her fingers fairly flew over his body as she began taking his clothes off, unbuttoning here, tugging there, her movements becoming more urgent as she stripped away the layers of fabric separating his skin from hers. Finally, her hand closed around the huge pole of flesh that jutted out from his groin, and she sighed as her eyes widened in wonder.

Her back was to the bed, and as Longarm rested his hands on her bare shoulders and pressed down gently, she went eagerly, reclining and pulling him down with her. Her thighs parted and his hand found her core, which was already drenched in her juices. She clutched his shaft with both hands, making milking motions along it as his fingers delved into the wet folds of feminine flesh. The ball of his hand was resting on her mound, and he pressed down gently but insistently. She took one hand away from his erection and caught hold of his hair as he lowered his head to one of her hard, demanding nipples and sucked it into his mouth. His shaft was like a rod of iron, throbbing almost painfully as she caressed it and used her thumb to spread the moisture that pearled from its tip all around the flaring head.

"Now, Custis!" she gasped. "Oh, God, now!"

He had already moved between her widespread thighs, balancing there on his knees. His manhood was only inches away from her fiery center. He drove forward with a thrust of his hips and found the gates of her womanhood open wide for him. She gasped again as he entered her, filling her deeply and completely. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and held on to him with surprising strength. The muscles of her femininity clenched on him as well, their grip so hot and tight that he almost lost control right away.

With a groan of effort, he exerted his iron will and forced down the reaction that was building within him. Neither of them were ready for this to be over yet. His hips began to move as he withdrew almost all the way, then plunged into her again.

"Harder!" she panted. "Harder!"

Longarm drove in and out, filling her to the brim, then pulling back. Both of them were breathing fast now, and Longarm could hear the thunder of his pulse inside his head. Annie plastered her mouth to his and her tongue shot into his mouth, plundering him as he was plundering her down below. The rest of the world had retreated, leaving only the two of them, and the only sounds to be heard on the entire planet were the rasp of their breath, the liquid movement of heated flesh within flesh, and the faint slapping of belly against belly.

Then Annie tore her mouth away from his and began to make a small, keening sound as her head thrashed from side to side on the bed. Longarm knew she had reached her culmination, so he held back no longer. He plunged deeply within her again, as deep as he could go, and held his shaft there as great, shuddery spasms shook him. His seed exploded from him in spurt after spurt, draining him and filling her in the eternal siphon of passion. Finally, with another shudder and jerk, the last of it welled from him. Sated, he slipped from her and rolled to the side, because he knew that if he didn't get off her, his weight would crush her as his muscles turned to jelly and he could no longer support himself on his elbows and knees.

Annie snuggled against his side, resting her head on his chest as he looped an arm around her and held her to him. Breathlessly, she said, "I am... so glad you... came to New Orleans, Custis."

He brushed his lips against her hair and murmured, "So am I."

In truth, his first day here had gone stunningly well. He had made progress on the job that had brought him to the Crescent City, and he had bedded a lovely, passionate woman whom he hadn't even known when this morning dawned. Too much good luck?

Longarm wondered how that trip down to the Delta country with Jasper Millard was going to go the next day.

CHAPTER 6

Longarm said, "Damn!" and swatted at the mosquito busily feasting on his neck. Beside him, Jasper Millard laughed.

"You stay down here in this country for very long, Parker," said Millard, "and you'll get to where you don't even notice those little bastards."

"That one wasn't so little," Longarm said as he studied the squashed insect on the palm of his hand. Its death had left a smear of blood on his skin. His own blood, thought Longarm, which the varmint had just sucked out of him. "These things get much bigger, they're liable to start carrying off dogs."

Millard chuckled again. He and Longarm were riding side by side along a road that followed the twisting course of a bayou. It was mid-morning and already quite hot, even though the cypress trees that bordered the road cast quite a bit of shade. Long strands of Spanish moss dangling from the branches brushed against Longarm's face from time to time. A warm breeze that was as lazy as the almost imperceptible current of the bayou brought a mixture of pungent smells to Longarm. The most prominent was that of the rich brown earth, but he also smelled the sweetness of honeysuckle and bougainvillea as well as the sharper tang of rotting fish. All in all, it was a blend that took some getting used to.

He had left his coat and vest behind today, though he still wore the string tie around his neck. His white shirt was already soaked with sweat. He had rolled the sleeves up for a while, but exposing his brawny forearms just gave the mosquitos more places to bite him. The sleeves were rolled down now. He wore brown whipcord pants and his usual black stovepipe boots. Millard had complimented him on the high-topped boots. "They're good for tromping around the bayou country," Millard had said. "Helps keep the rattlers and the cottonmouths and the copperheads and the coral snakes from biting you."

What kind of place was it, Longarm wondered, that had so many venomous snakes? Weren't one or two kinds enough?

The area was teeming with wildlife. So far he had seen deer and squirrels and skunks and opossums. A couple of times he had spotted what he first thought were logs floating in the water, and then he had seen the tiny black eyes protruding from the surface of the bayou. Those were alligators out there, he realized, gators just like the one that had chomped half of Douglas Ramsey's body. Maybe one of them was the same gator, for all he knew. A chill went through him at the thought, but he managed not to shudder.

From time to time, Longarm and Millard passed shacks with palmetto-thatched roofs. The shacks were built of unpainted, weather-bleached boards and were set atop stilts, and many of them leaned a little--whether from shoddy construction or the hurricane winds that sometimes blew from the Gulf, Longarm didn't know. Beside the shacks were small patches of garden. Cows and pigs and chickens were confined in ramshackle pens. Some of the shacks backed up to the bayou or even extended over the water on their stilts, and pirogues were tied up at these. The lightweight canoes drew very little water, Longarm knew. He had heard it said that they could float on a heavy dew.

Sometimes narrow, pinched, sunburned faces peered out at the two riders from the windows or porches of the shacks. Millard ignored the Cajuns as he rode past. Longarm felt a pang of sympathy for them, then wondered if the emotion was misplaced. These people who lived in the bayou country were a breed apart in some ways; hard though it might be, this life was the only one they knew, and Longarm suspected that most of them would never be happy anywhere else.

Another bayou joined the one they were following, and the water grew wider to their left. Millard waved at a field of flowers to the right and said, "Looks solid, doesn't it?"

"I reckon it does," said Longarm.

"You wouldn't want to ride across there. You wouldn't make it five feet before your horse was bogged down in mud up to its belly. In fact, almost anywhere you go off this road it would be like that."

Longarm looked around. The landscape appeared to be tall grass prairie for the most part, sprinkled with fields full of flowers. Even without Millard's warning, though, he would have known from past visits to this area that appearances were deceiving. Any man who strayed off known paths ran the risk of winding up in quicksand or water over his head with little or no warning.

The cypress trees thinned out and gradually vanished, and Longarm and Millard entered a region of long, shallow ridges covered with rows of stunted oaks. "Shinneries," grunted Millard, pointing at the ridges with a thumb. "That's where we'll find the men we're looking for."

A few minutes later, he turned his horse and rode onto one of the ridges that crossed the path. Longarm followed. The shinnery oaks provided a little shade from the sun, which was climbing higher and higher in the sky and growing warmer as it climbed. The cypresses, with their spreading limbs and shawls of Spanish moss, had given better shade, but Longarm was grateful for anything that blocked the blasting rays of the sun.

Ahead of them, the ridge curved gradually to the right, and it appeared to run for several miles. Longarm couldn't see the end of it. It was perhaps a quarter of a mile wide, with salt-grass marshes flanking it on both sides. They had ridden about a mile, Longarm judged, when they came within sight of a cluster of shacks.

There were rivulets of open water among the marshes, and Longarm knew that the men who paddled the pirogues pulled up next to the shacks could navigate the twisting waterways through those marshes and swamps with as much ease and confidence as he could ride from Denver to Cheyenne. At the moment, several men were gathered on the porch of one of the shacks. As Longarm and Millard rode up, the men lifted hands in greeting and one of them stood up to walk slowly out to meet them.

"Howdy, Mr. Millard. We is here like you say, us.

"You have something for me?" asked Millard, not dismounting.

"Always gots something, no? Take it to N'awleans, you, an' sell her for plenty-plenty money, yes?"

"Depends on what you've got."

The man, who was tall and skinny with a thatch of dark hair that fell over his forehead, waved a hand at the pirogues, which were loaded with oilcloth-covered bundles. "We gots fine silk, us, an' a case or three o' wine, an' some o' th em fancy see-gars from the Cubanos, you bet. You make us a good price, an' we load her on your wagons when they come, yes."

At the mention of the Cuban cigars, Millard shot a glance at Longarm, as if reminding him of the one he had smoked the night before in the Brass Pelican. Then he looked back at the spokesman for the Cajun smugglers and shook his head solemnly. "There's not enough demand for those goods, boys," he said. "You're going to have to give me a good price on the lot if you want me to take it."

"Our hearts, they are breakin'!" exclaimed the smuggler. "We are poor men, us, jus' tryin' to make a little-little money for our families, no? These words, they hurt us."

Millard shrugged his brawny shoulders, took off his planter's hat, and used a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket to mop sweat from his bald head. "It's up to you, Antoine," he said.

Longarm had seen haggling like this many times before, in border towns from California to Texas. In its own way, this Delta country was like a border town, because there was no place else exactly like it. Arguing over a price was to be expected, and Longarm wasn't surprised when a moment later, the spokesman for the smugglers echoed Millard's shrug and said, "A hard man, you, Mr. Millard, but we takes your money-"

His concession was interrupted by the sudden bark of a gunshot. The Cajun's eyes widened in shock and pain as he stumbled back a couple of steps. A crimson flower of blood bloomed on the breast of his grayish-white shirt.

More shots rang out as the other men exploded from the porch of the shack. Rifles and shotguns had appeared in their grimy hands as if by magic. As the wounded man slumped to the ground, his companions looked around for the source of the attack.

Longarm had twisted in the saddle and drawn his Colt, and beside him, Millard had pulled a gun too. Longarm thought the shot had come from behind them, so he wheeled his horse around.

Figures wearing derby hats and bandannas over their faces were bursting from the tall salt grass onto the shinnery upstream from the cabins, their guns blazing. Two more of the Cajun smugglers went down. Millard roared, "Royale!" and started firing at the masked men. Longarm triggered a couple of shots, and had the satisfaction of seeing one of the men tumble backwards into the marsh with a muddy splash.

"Let's get out of here!" he shouted to Millard, yanking on his horse's reins. "There are too many of them!"

Around two dozen men were attacking the cluster of smugglers' shacks, Longarm estimated, though making an accurate count wasn't the most important thing on his mind in the heat of battle. They must have slipped through the marshes in pirogues until they were in position to strike. Longarm didn't want to abandon the smugglers, but it was vital that he keep Millard alive for the time being, until he found out who had really killed Douglas Ramsey.

Millard didn't seem interested in flight. He was returning the fire of Royale's men as fast as he could. Already a slug had chewed a hole in the crown of his hat, coming within inches of splattering his brains on the ground. Longarm snapped off another shot, then reached over and grabbed hold of Millard's arm.

"Come on, damn it!"

This time, Millard went with Longarm. The two of them galloped past the cabins, heading farther east along the shinnery. That left the Cajun smugglers behind to defend their homes as best they could, and Longarm grimaced as he thought about how outnumbered and outgunned they were. Still, there was nothing he could do about it. And he and Millard weren't out of trouble yet themselves, he saw a moment later as a group of riders emerged from a stand of the stunted oaks up ahead and rode toward them, firing as they came.

"Son of a bitch!" exclaimed Millard. "There's more of the bastards!"

There was indeed, thought Longarm grimly. Now he and Millard were caught between two forces, and the only way left open to them lay through the treacherous salt marshes.

They had no choice in the matter. If they stayed on the shinnery, they would be dead in a matter of moments, shot to ribbons by Royale's murderous gang.

"Come on!" shouted Longarm as he turned his horse and sent it leaping off the path into the salt grass.

Luck guided him. The ground beneath his horse's hooves was fairly firm at this point. The head-high grass closed around him, cutting him off from the view of the shinnery. Royale's men were able to track his progress through the marsh by the waving of the grass, however, and slugs slashed through the stalks around him. Longarm glanced over his shoulder and saw that Millard was right behind him. Longarm was glad Millard hadn't stayed to fight, because then he would have had to go back and try to pull Millard out of the fire.

Now all they had to do was survive the hail of rifle bullets that was scything through the salt grass around them.

"Be careful, Parker!" Millard shouted suddenly. "You're about to run up on some water-"

He didn't get to finish his warning. Longarm's mount burst from the grass into a narrow open space filled with shallow black water. It splashed up around the horse's hooves, splattering mud on Longarm's boots and trousers. The horse slid to one side, in danger of losing its footing, and Longarm hauled desperately on the reins, as if he could hold the animal up with sheer brute strength. He realized quickly that it was hopeless, and kicked his feet free from the stirrups as the horse fell.

Longarm landed half in the water, half on firmer ground. He managed to keep his pistol aloft so that it didn't get wet or fouled with mud. A few yards away, the horse scrambled to its feet and lunged out of the water, but it took only a few steps before it began to flounder again. Thick black mud sucked at its legs, and as Longarm watched in horror, the animal began to sink. That was not just mud, Longarm realized.

It was quicksand.

There was nothing he could do for the horse. He had no rope, no way to pull it free. Its shrill screams wrenched at him as it was quickly swallowed up by the clinging liquid mud. As the horse's cries died away in a hideous gurgle, Longarm heard men's voices shouting somewhere not far away. "Over here!" one of them yelled. "Quicksand's got the bastard's horse, sure as hell!"

"Maybe got him too!" called another man.

Those were Royale's hired killers, thought Longarm as he crouched on the edge of the narrow stream. He looked around for Millard, and bit back a curse. There was no sign of the man. Millard had been right behind him when he hit the water, but he had vanished after that. Longarm thought that he must have chosen another path through the marsh and was still trying to get away from Royale's men. Hoofbeats didn't make much noise on this soft ground, so Longarm couldn't tell if Millard was still on horseback or not.

Millard had abandoned him, he thought with a sardonic grunt. Well, that came as no real surprise. Longarm had known the man less than twenty-four hours, and it wasn't reasonable to expect Millard to risk his own life to stay behind and help a new employee. All Longarm could do now was try to get himself out of this mess and hope that Millard made it back to New Orleans safely.

The voices of the hunters were getting closer now. Longarm had no idea how well Royale's men knew these marshes, but if they knew their way around at all, they were better off than he was. He crouched in the tall grass and lifted his Colt, his hand tightening on the butt of the gun. Outnumbered as he was, he couldn't hope to shoot it out with them and come out alive, but they didn't seem to be interested in taking any prisoners.

"Be careful," said one of the killers, surprisingly close. "I don't know who that fella with Millard was."

"Don't matter," came the harsh reply. "We'll jus' kill him anyway, no matter who he be."

Longarm's lips drew back from his teeth in a grimace. You can try, old son, he thought. You can try.

Then he had to swallow a startled cry as a hand reached out from the salt grass and grabbed hold of his left arm.

He twisted toward the unknown attacker and jerked his gun around, finger tightening on the trigger. Just in time, his brain registered what his eyes were seeing, and his finger froze, stopping him from putting a bullet through the brain of the young woman who crouched beside him in the mud.

CHAPTER 7

She put a finger to her lips, motioning to him for silence.

Longarm's eyes widened in surprise. He had never seen this young woman before. If he had, he would have remembered her. He was certain of that.

She was an olive-skinned beauty with thick dark hair tumbling to her shoulders. The thin cotton dress she wore clung wetly to her body, making the nipples on her pear-shaped breasts plainly visible. Once, the dress had been an elegant gown, Longarm saw, but now it was old and ripped in places, and the bottom had been torn off so that it came down only midway on her thighs, leaving the rest of her tanned, muscular legs bare. Her feet were shod in flimsy slippers that were caked with mud, and mud was splattered on her calves too, as well as on her dress. There was even a smear of it on her face. Despite the ragged dress and the grime, she was still lovely.

She tugged on Longarm's sleeve and motioned with her other hand for him to follow her.

Longarm glanced around. The gunmen were still prowling around close by, and within a matter of minutes, they were bound to stumble over him if he didn't move. Even though he had no idea who this young woman was, he was willing to bet that she knew her way around the marsh better than he did. He nodded, letting her know that he was willing to follow her.

He hoped she wasn't planning to lead him into a trap.

Longarm figured he looked like a damned fool as he walked in a crouch after her, but better to look foolish than to stick his head up and get it shot off, he decided. Besides, they traveled that way only for a few yards, Longarm following closely behind the young woman as she carefully parted the salt grass, and then they reached the bank of another stream. A pirogue was there, pulled up on firmer ground. The young woman gestured for Longarm to get in.

He did so, hoping there were no coral snakes or cottonmouths lurking under the surface of the water as he waded into it and stepped up into the pirogue. The young woman pushed the craft off the bank and hopped in lithely. Obviously she had had plenty of practice getting in and out of pirogues.

She picked up a paddle lying in the bottom and dipped it into the water. Longarm checked for another paddle so that he could help, and saw that there wasn't one. Clearly she intended to do all the paddling herself. She gestured for him to keep his head down, then settled into a steady rhythm with the paddle. It bit quietly into the water and pushed them along, first on one side of the pirogue, then the other. The splashes were so faint that Longarm doubted if they could be heard more than a few feet away.

He could still hear Royale's men shouting among themselves as they searched for him and Millard, though, and the growing frustration was plain to hear in their voices. There had been no more shots, which gave Longarm reason to hope that Millard had gotten away. After having such a perfect setup for his investigation fall into his lap, he hated the idea of having to start over if Millard wound up dead at the hands of Royale's men.

More streams intersected the one on which they were traveling, and Longarm quickly grew confused by the twists and turns of the route that the young woman was following. He knew that the shouts of Royale's men were dying away in the distance behind them, however, and for the moment, that was all he cared about. His lovely young rescuer and guide, self-appointed though she might be, was doing an excellent job of getting him out of a whole mess of trouble. Longarm slipped his Colt back in its holster, figuring that he no longer needed it, at least for the time being.

Within half an hour, they were out of the marshes and back in the bayou country, with huge cypresses spreading their limbs over the twisting, slow-moving waterways. Now that she didn't have to worry so much about noise, the young woman paddled with stronger strokes, and the pirogue slid easily over the water.

"I'm mighty obliged for what you did back there," Longarm said, breaking the silence between them. "Reckon you saved my bacon, ma'am."

She turned her head and flashed a dazzling smile at him. "This bay-konn of yours, him is good with the hush puppies, no?" Her Cajun accent was thick, but the words still sounded soft and musical coming from her.

Longarm chuckled. "I suppose you may be right. I'm Custis Parker."

"Cussstisss," she repeated, drawing out the name. "Name is Claudette, mine."

"Well, Claudette, you came along just in time. Those fellas who were looking for me would've found me pretty soon, and when they did they'd have done their best to put some bullets in my hide."

She nodded as she paddled, and without looking back at him, she said, "Knew they wanted to kill you, I did. Heard 'em yellin' 'bout it. Figure any man in so much trouble, gotta help him."

"You know who those other gents were?"

She shrugged her shoulders without breaking the rhythm of her paddling. "Smuggler men." The distaste in her voice was evident.

"You don't like the smugglers? Lots of folks in this part of the country are mixed up in it, I hear."

Claudette shook her head. "Other people, not me. I catch the crawfish, trap the otter and the nutria for their furs, get by jus' fine."

"What about your family?" asked Longarm.

Again, she shook her head. "Gran'pere the last one left, an' the sickness take him last winter, it did. Now jus' me, but I don't mind."

"Where do you live?"

She brought the paddle back into the pirogue and used her right hand to point. "My home, there."

Longarm leaned over to look past her, and saw that she was pointing at a shack built on the edge of the bayou, part of it extending over the water on its stilts like some of the others he had seen today. This one was surrounded by thick brush and cypress trees, however, so that it seemed even more cut off from the rest of the world as it perched on the edge of the slow-moving water. Claudette turned and smiled at Longarm again, then resumed paddling toward the ramshackle cabin.

There was a crude ladder built on the side of the shack that hung over the water, and Claudette sent the pirogue skimming straight toward it. As they came alongside, she caught hold of the ladder, which led up to a door mounted on sagging leather hinges. She stood up, steadying herself with the ladder, and tied the pirogue to it with a stout cord. Then she climbed up to the door and opened it, and Longarm couldn't help but admire the play of the muscles in her legs and rear end under the thin dress. She looked back over her shoulder and beckoned for Longarm to follow her.

He reached up and grabbed the ladder, waiting until Claudette had disappeared into the cabin before he started up. When he stepped through the open door into the shack, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Here under the cypress trees, the world was cloaked in perpetual green shadows, but the light was even dimmer inside the cabin. He saw Claudette moving on the other side of the single room, and after a few seconds he could tell that she was starting a fire in an old wood-burning stove.

"Heat you up some gumbo, I will," she said. "He's gonna fill up your belly. Mighty tasty, I guarantee."

Now that she mentioned it, he was getting hungry, Longarm realized. It had been a long time since breakfast in the hotel dining room this morning. He figured it was well past mid-afternoon, and when he pulled out his watch and flipped the cover open, he saw that he was right.

"Pretty-pretty watch," said Claudette when she saw what he was doing. "Gran'pere, he have him a watch like that. When he die, bury it with him, I did."

"Looks like you could have used it," commented Longarm as he put his own watch away.

Claudette waved a hand to indicate their surroundings and said, "Time, she don't matter here in the bayou country."

Longarm knew what she meant. In this region of heat and water and lush vegetation, this ever-shifting borderland between the sea and the shore, one day was much like the next. There were few changes, few reasons for anyone to know exactly what time it was.

He looked around the inside of the cabin. Besides the stove, it was furnished with a rough-hewn table, several rickety-looking chairs, and a narrow bed with a straw mattress. Through a window in the front wall, he saw a hammock strung between two posts that held up a rotting porch roof.

Claudette noticed him looking around, and she dropped her gaze to the unpainted planks of the floor as she said, "This a mighty sorry place to live, you're thinkin', Custis. And you're right."

Quickly, he shook his head. In truth, he didn't understand how a bright, vital young woman like Claudette could be happy in such squalid surroundings, but he didn't want to hurt her feelings by saying that. After all, she had saved his life, more than likely, and she was about to feed him a bowl of gumbo.

"Everybody's got a right to live where they want," he said, "and to live the way they want to as long as they ain't hurting anybody else. Which I don't reckon you are."

"Just want to be left alone, me," she said, still not looking at him, and he wondered if somehow she had been hurt in the past. Had she left this bayou haven and ventured out into the rest of the world, gone to New Orleans maybe, and had something happen to her that was so bad she had run back here determined to spend the rest of her life among the cypresses and the bougainvillea and the water lilies?

It was none of his business, of course. After what she had done for him, he didn't want to pry too deeply into her life.

She found bowls and spoons in a wooden crate that evidently served as a pantry, then dished out the gumbo from the black iron pot on the top of the stove. Longarm sat down at the table as she brought over the food and took the chair opposite him.

"Eat up," she said with a smile. "Hope you like gumbo."

"Sure do," said Longarm. He dipped up a spoonful of the thick, steaming soup. It tasted good and was full of chopped-up okra, just the way he liked it. He said as much to Claudette, who smiled brightly.

They ate in silence for several minutes. Then Longarm asked, "How'd you happen to be down there in the marshes so that you could help me out?"

"Planned to go out into the bay and do some seinin' for shrimp, I did," she replied. She grinned across the table at him. "Caught me a big ol' fish instead."

Longarm chuckled. He had been called a lot of things in his life, but he didn't remember anyone ever referring to him as a fish before.

"A shark, maybe, with plenty-plenty sharp teeth," Claudette went on. Her smile disappeared, replaced by a solemn look. "Why you runnin' round the marshes with smuggler men tryin' to shoot you, Custis?"

Longarm hesitated, unsure how to answer that question. Claudette had an obvious antipathy for smugglers, so he didn't want to admit to working with Jasper Millard, but he wasn't just about to reveal his true identity to her either. Finally, he said vaguely, "I was on my way down to Grand Isle to see a man about a boat. Those fellas you say were smugglers jumped me for no good reason and tried to kill me." He said nothing about Millard.

Claudette nodded, seeming to accept his explanation. "Prob'ly see you and think you spyin' on 'em, they did. Hones' folks in the Delta stay away from them smugglers, you bet."

"That sounds like a good idea," said Longarm sincerely. He didn't want an innocent like Claudette getting tangled up in the feud between Millard and Royale. Of course, by helping him, she had already taken a hand, but maybe he could keep her out of any further involvement.

He scraped up the last of the gumbo, swallowed it, and asked, "What's the best way back to New Orleans from here?"

"There a road not far off. Take you there in the mornin', I can."

Longarm frowned. "I figured I'd start back to town today."

Claudette shook her head. "No. Too far to walk 'fore dark, and you don't want to be out trampin' round the bayous after the sun, she is gone down. Too many snakes, and the night is black like God damn. Best you stay here tonight, tomorrow maybe catch a ride on a wagon goin' to town."

What she said made sense, all right, but Longarm still chafed at the delay. He wanted to get back to New Orleans and find out if Millard had survived this second attack by Royale's men. Two attempts on Millard's life in less than twenty-four hours, mused Longarm. Royale was certainly turning up the heat. The friction between the two leaders of the smuggling rings was going to burst into the flame of an all-out war if this kept up.

But there was nothing he could do about it tonight, so he nodded in acceptance of Claudette's advice. "I'm much obliged," he said. "I reckon that hammock out on the front porch will hold me all right."

Again she shook her head. "You get the bunk, Custis. Gran'pere sleep there when he still alive. I take the hammock, me."

"Don't hardly seem fair," said Longarm with a frown as he reached into his pocket for a cheroot. "This is your place."

"And you my guest. Don't argue with me 'bout this, you."

He had to grin. "All right," he said as he held up his hands in mock surrender. "I'll take the bunk, and you can use the hammock."

She nodded, clearly pleased with her victory.

Nightfall was not far away now. Longarm smoked a cheroot, which Claudette said reminded her of her gran'pere's pipe. She brought out a clay jug with a wooden stopper and offered it to Longarm. "Home brew," she told him. "I like a little taste now and again, me."

"So do I," he said with a grin. He pulled the stopper with his teeth, then crooked his arm and tipped the jug to his lips. Fiery liquor flowed into his mouth. He caught his breath as the heat of it seared his gullet and fairly exploded in his belly. "Potent stuff," he said as he blew his breath back out.

"Good for the digestion." Claudette took the jug from him and downed a healthy swallow of the homemade whiskey. She wiped the back of her other hand across her mouth.

She was quite a contradiction, thought Longarm. Undeniably lovely, probably intelligent, yet she willingly lived this primitive backwoods existence... which, of course, was her choice and none of his business, he reminded himself. Yet he couldn't help but wonder how she would look cleaned up and in some better clothes.

Shadows were gathering outside, making it even darker in the shack. After putting the jug away, Claudette opened the front door and said, "Good night, Custis."

"Sort of early to turn in, isn't it?"

She shrugged. "In the bayou country, not much to do after dark."

Longarm might have been able to make a suggestion or two about how they could pass the time, even in the dark, but with all Claudette had already done for him, he didn't want to force himself on her. He nodded and said, "All right then. Good night, Claudette."

She shut the door, and he heard her climb into the hammock on the front porch. Longarm went over to the bunk, trying not to think about how Claudette's grandfather had likely died there, and sat down to pull off his boots. He took off his gunbelt as well, coiling it and placing it on the floor beside the bunk within easy reach. He had already tossed his hat onto the table. That left his tie and his shirt, because he intended to keep his pants on. He undid the tie, shrugged out of the shirt, and placed both of them on the table beside his hat. The light in the room was just about gone by the time he stretched out on the bunk, feeling the ropes underneath the straw mattress sag a little.

Longarm didn't expect to go to sleep right away, but he surprised himself by dozing off almost immediately. He slept lightly, though, so he was instantly awake when he heard the soft scrape of the door opening sometime later. He was unsure exactly how much time had passed, but it was pitch dark in the cabin.

Quiet footsteps came across the room toward him. From the confidence with which the person was moving in the darkness, Longarm felt fairly sure it was Claudette. He wasn't sure why she was sneaking around like this; if she had wanted to harm him, she'd had ample opportunity before now. But he reached down and silently wrapped his fingers around the butt of his holstered Colt anyway.

He could hear her breathing as she knelt on the other side of the bed. Suddenly, something touched his chest, light as a butterfly, and he realized she was stroking him with her fingertips. She trailed her fingers through the thick dark hair that curled on his chest, moving them ever lower. She reached his waist and then moved even lower, flattening her hand to press the palm of it against the rapidly rising bulge at his groin. Through the fabric of his trousers, her fingers closed around his hardening shaft.

"Custis, I know you got to be awake," she whispered as she squeezed him lightly. "Either awake or dead, you."

"I ain't dead," he told her, his voice sounding strangely hoarse in his ears.

She squeezed harder. "Good, 'cause I need a live man tonight, me."

Longarm let go of his Colt and reached up toward her. His hand encountered soft, yielding flesh and closed around it. He could feel the pebbled ring of her nipple prodding against his palm. He squeezed her breast for a moment, then ran his thumb over the erect nub of flesh, plucking at it like a guitar string and drawing a low note of pleasure from her throat.

"Afraid you got a shameless hussy here, you be Custis," she said. She unbuckled his belt, and then he felt her fingers go to work on the buttons of his trousers.

"That's just fine with me," he told her, reaching up to cup her other breast.

She finished with the last button and reached inside his trousers to free his shaft. As it bobbed up, she wrapped her hand around it and began sliding her palm up and down.

"Oh, you be plenty-plenty big," she said, breathless with anticipation. "Goin' to feel so good inside me."

He slid his hands from her breasts along her flanks. As he had thought, she was naked, having shed the old dress she had been wearing earlier. He reached down and moved his hand between her thighs. He probed her with a finger, and found her hot and wet. She moaned and pressed her pelvis against him as he explored her slick femaleness.

Then she leaned over and planted a kiss on his chest. She tongued each of his nipples for a moment, then moved down his torso, her lips and tongue leaving a fiery trail of sensation behind them. She lifted herself over him so that she could reach his manhood, and a second later, her lips closed around the tip of the throbbing pole of flesh.

Longarm's hips wanted to surge up off the bed and drive his shaft deeper into her mouth, but he controlled the urge and let Claudette set the pace. Her tongue swirled around the head and toyed with the slit at the very tip, licking up the moisture that welled from it. After a few maddening moments of that, she moved on down the shaft, kissing and licking until she had it wet all over. It was all Longarm could do not to explode in her mouth.

He caught hold of her hips and pulled her onto the bunk with him so that she lay with her thighs straddling his head. As she took his manhood into her mouth again, sucking it deeper this time, he reached down and tangled his hands in her thick dark hair. The musky scent of her femininity filled his nostrils as he lifted his head and thrust his tongue into her. She groaned around his shaft and clenched her thighs on his ears.

There was a limit to how much of this Longarm could stand without losing control, and he reached it after a few minutes. Claudette seemed to be totally willing to move on to the next step too, as he pulled her around so that she faced him. She reached down to guide the long, thick rod of flesh into her, and they were both so wet that he slid inside with no trouble. Claudette put her hands on his chest and pushed herself upright so that she was sitting on him, so stuffed with his manhood that they both felt it hit bottom. Or top, as the case might be. Claudette gasped and began to rock her hips back and forth.

"Oh, fill me up so good, you, Custis!" she cried.

He held her hips to steady her as he began thrusting up from the bunk, meeting her movements with his own. Urgency crept over him, making him drive into her harder and faster. She was caught up in the grip of passion just as he was, and she said, "Oh!... Oh!... Oh!" as he made love to her. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness inside the shack by now, and in the faint glow of moonlight and starlight that filtered through the trees and into the cabin, he could see her throwing her head back and forth, her hair whipping around it. Her fingers dug into his chest, holding on for dear life.

Finally, arching his back, Longarm drove the bar of flesh that was both velvet and iron as deeply into her as it would go, and held it there as his climax exploded from him. Spurt after spurt of the thick seed boiled from his manhood and filled her to the brim. Her own climax burst at the same time in a series of shudders that rolled through her. Longarm threw his head back and groaned through clenched teeth as the last of his juices welled out of him.

Claudette collapsed on top of him, her breasts flattening against his chest. Both of them were breathing heavily, their bodies slicked with sweat from the humid heat of the bayou country--and the heat of their lovemaking. She nuzzled her face against his shoulder for a moment. Then Longarm cupped her chin and turned her toward him so that he could kiss her. His lips brushed hers with a tenderness that might not have been possible had he not already been sated. In fact, as he tasted the sweet, hot wetness of her mouth, another throb went through his shaft, which was still buried within her. The reaction made her give a throaty little noise almost like the purr of a cat.

"I am so happy--happy I find you in that marsh, Custis," she whispered.

"You and me both, Claudette," he told her. "You and me both."

CHAPTER 8

As Claudette had predicted, Longarm was able to hitch a ride into New Orleans the next morning with a farmer who was taking a load of produce into town to the market near the docks. That put Longarm close to Gallatin Street too, so he was able to walk to the Brass Pelican. The door of the gambling club was locked when he got there, however, so he pounded on the panel and waited to see if anyone was going to open it.

His thoughts went back to Claudette. She had awakened him that morning when dawn was just beginning to gray the sky, and a mighty nice way of waking up it had been. She had been kneeling beside the bunk, her head bobbing up and down over his groin as she sucked on his manhood. He had caught hold of her shoulder and tried to pull her up onto the bunk with him, but her lips and tongue had ceased what they were doing long enough for her to say, "No! You leave him where he is. That what I want, me."

Longarm didn't argue. He let her continue with the French lesson--appropriate enough name for it, he considered, since she was descended from those Acadian settlers who had once called France home--and after a few minutes he felt his climax nearing again. Claudette seemed to sense it too, because she gripped his stalk firmly with one hand and tightened her lips around it, as if to make sure that he didn't get away from her.

That was the last thing he had in mind. He poured out his seed into her mouth as she swallowed eagerly. She had reached down between her legs to rub herself, and her hips were pumping back and forth in a frenzy as she drained him, using her hand to squeeze out the last drops so that she could lap them up. Longarm flopped back on the bunk and reflected that if he didn't get back to New Orleans pretty soon, this lusty Cajun gal was liable to just about love him to death.

After that she fed him breakfast, showed him the road she had mentioned the night before, and gave him a sweet kiss of farewell. He had walked along the road only about a mile when a farmer came along with a wagon loaded with produce, and now here he was standing in front of the Brass Pelican, lifting his hand to knock once more on the door.

Before he could do so, the panel swung open, and a man with a narrow, pasty face peered out at him, blinking from the mid-morning glare. The man looked like the sort who didn't often actually see the sun. Longarm recognized him as one of the bartenders he had seen in the club a couple of nights earlier.

"Yeah?" growled the man. "What the hell do you want?"

"You must not recognize me, old son." Longarm put his shoulder against the door and easily shoved it open, stepping inside as the bartender stumbled back a couple of steps. "Is Millard here?"

"Mr. Millard!" yelled the man as he reached behind him to jerk something from behind his belt. Longarm was expecting the little pistol he saw in the bartender's hand, and he reached out to close his own hand over the cylinder so that the gun couldn't fire. With a quick wrench, Longarm plucked the pistol from the bartender's fingers, twisting one of them in the process. The man yelped and jumped back again, sticking the injured digit in his mouth to suck on it.

Jasper Millard appeared in the doorway at the end of the bar, a shotgun in his hands. He had the greener cocked and ready for trouble, no doubt thinking that Royale might be staging another attack on the club. Longarm held up his hand, palm out, and said hurriedly, "Hold on, Mr. Millard. It's just me, Custis Parker."

"Parker!" exclaimed Millard in surprise. He pointed the double barrels of the greener at the floor and carefully lowered the hammers. "Damn it, I didn't expect to see you again. I was afraid that if Royale's men didn't get you, the swamp would."

Longarm shook his head. He tossed the pocket pistol back to the bartender, who glared at him even though it was obvious Longarm wasn't one of the enemy. Longarm ignored the man and strolled along the bar to join Millard.

"Reckon I was lucky. I see you were too."

"I know my way around those marshes. I grew up down there."

"You don't sound like a Cajun," Longarm pointed out.

Millard shrugged his brawny shoulders. "I was gone for a long time before I came back to New Orleans. Suppose I lost the accent somewhere along the way. But I never forgot how easy it is to bring in goods through the Delta." He turned and inclined his head to indicate that Longarm was to follow him. "Let's go back to the office."

Longarm followed the bald-headed man down the hall, and once they were in the office, Millard waved at the chair in front of the desk. Longarm sat down and cocked his right ankle on his left knee. He was still wearing the mud-stained clothes he had worn the day before.

"You look like you've been through the wringer," said Millard as he sat down behind the desk. "Help yourself to one of those cigars." He nodded toward the humidor.

Longarm reached into his pocket for a cheroot. "Reckon I'll smoke my own."

Millard frowned across the desk at him. "What's the matter, Parker?" he asked. "You're acting like somebody shoved a burr up your ass."

Longarm flicked a lucifer into life with an iron-hard thumbnail and held the flame to the end of his cheroot. When he had it burning to suit him, he shook the match out and dropped it on the floor beside the chair. "You sort of disappeared yesterday after we ran into Royale's boys."

The frown on Millard's face deepened. "What the hell is this?" he snapped. "You're mad because I didn't stay around to pull your fat out of the fire?"

"I got the notion we were working together."

"Well, you got the wrong notion!" Millard said with a snort. "You're working for me, Parker. We ain't partners." His eyes narrowed. "I warned you about getting too ambitious."

Longarm sighed. He had pushed this mock resentment about as far as he was going to. But he had figured that a man as tough and amoral as he was supposed to be ought to say something about being left behind to face a pack of vicious killers.

"You're right, Boss," he muttered. "Sorry. To tell you the truth, I'm just glad we both got out of there with our hides in one piece."

Millard grunted, seeming to accept Longarm's apology. "Yeah, so am I. The way things are going, I expect Royale to pull something else any time now."

"Maybe since his boys failed the last couple of times, he'll think twice about starting more trouble."

Millard shook his head. "I'd like to think so, but I doubt it. I got a feeling Royale's not going to let up until either him or me is dead." He looked curiously at Longarm. "How'd you get away from his men anyway?"

"Pure dumb luck," said Longarm with a grin. He wasn't going to mention Claudette. "My horse got sucked down by quicksand, and I knew I couldn't take off across those marshes on foot without winding up the same way. But I found an old pirogue and started paddling around those bayous, and that kept me from getting sucked under. Royale's men were hollering at each other while they looked for us, so I just steered clear of them as much as I could. Didn't hear any more shots, so I was hoping you'd gotten away too."

"How did you get back here to New Orleans?"

Longarm puffed on his cheroot, then blew out the smoke and said, "First I found me a tree to climb up into so I wouldn't have to spend the night on the ground. Then when the sun came up this morning, I paddled on some more until I came across a road. Figured it had to lead me back to town sooner or later, so I started walking. Wasn't long before a farmer came along heading to market and gave me a ride on his wagon. Fella brought me practically right to your door."

As stories went, it was a little far-fetched, Longarm knew, but it was certainly possible that everything could have happened that way. And Millard had no reason to doubt him either. In fact, the club owner began nodding his bald head even as Longarm finished the concoction of lies and half-truths.

"You're lucky, all right," said Millard. "Damn lucky. Fella like you who doesn't know the bayou country ought to be in some gator's belly after spending a night out in the open like that."

The mention of alligators reminded Longarm of Douglas Ramsey. He shuddered and said, "Don't talk about gators. I never have liked those critters."

A humorless grin plucked at Millard's mouth. "They come in handy sometimes," he said cryptically.

Longarm kept the reaction he felt hidden, but his heart began to slug a little harder. Was Millard talking about how Marshal Ramsey's body had been disposed of? Or did he have something else in mind? Given the line of work Millard was in, he might have had plenty of other bodies to get rid of. Millard's comment still wasn't the proof Longarm needed to feel certain he was responsible for Ramsey's death.

But there was another angle Longarm had yet to explore. Maybe it was time for that, he thought.

"What do you intend to do about Royale?" he asked. "Reckon you could put one of those voodoo curses or something like that on him?"

Millard frowned again. "What do you mean by that?" he demanded.

"I thought everybody in New Orleans did that voodoo stuff," said Longarm with an innocent shrug. "Sticking pins in dolls, things like that."

From the way Millard was glaring, even the mention of voodoo was a sore point with him. "Nobody in his right mind messes with voodoo. It's too easy to get the people who believe in it all stirred up." He paused, then added, "Anyway, only a fool would really believe in that mumbo jumbo."

"Reckon you're right," Longarm said easily, appearing to forget about the subject entirely as he went on. "What happened with that shipment of goods you went down to the Delta to set up yesterday?"

"Royale's men killed several of the Cajuns who work for me," replied Millard, his face still grim. "But I'm going to get those goods anyway. I sent a dozen well-armed men down there this morning to collect them. Would've sent you with them, Parker--if I'd known you were still alive."

Longarm shrugged. "I was still trying to get back to town. Sorry I let you down, Boss. I should've been able to do something about that ambush yesterday."

"There wasn't anything you could have done," Millard said with a shake of his head. "The odds were too heavy against us. I didn't expect Royale to go to that much trouble so soon after his men raided the club." Millard's dark eyes narrowed ominously. "Looks like I'm going to have to take a good-sized group of men with me wherever I go for a while, till things settle down again." Longarm wasn't sure things were going to settle down. Royale seemed to be dead set on bringing the rivalry between him and Millard to an end, one way or the other. Longarm kept that thought to himself, however. As long as Millard was having trouble, he would need Longarm around--and that was just what Longarm wanted.

"You might as well go on back to your hotel and get cleaned up," continued Millard. "You could probably use some real sleep too, after spending the night in a tree."

"I am a mite tired," admitted Longarm, although in truth he had slept just fine between bouts of lovemaking with Claudette. "Don't you need me to stay here, though?"

Millard shook his head. "I don't plan to leave the club today, and I'm safe enough here."

"Couldn't prove it by the fella who let me in," Longarm pointed out. "If I'd been working for Royale, you might be dead now."

"Maybe you're right," said Millard. "But I've got more men upstairs. I'll roust them out and put a couple of guards with shotguns on every entrance."

"Wouldn't hurt to have a couple of them right out there in the hall, in front of your door."

"Good idea." Millard stood up. "I'll see to it right now. Why don't you come back over here after supper?"

Longarm nodded. "All right. If you're sure."

"I'm sure. Go on, Parker."

Longarm left the club, hoping that Millard would follow through on those precautions they had discussed. To tell the truth, he really was tired, and he wanted to get out of his dirty clothes. A hot bath, a few hours' sleep, and a fresh outfit would go a long way toward making him feel like a new man.

He hailed one of the hansom cabs and headed for the St. Charles Hotel.

By the time he returned to the Brass Pelican that evening, he did indeed feel positively human again. Well rested, dressed in a clean suit and shirt, he felt as if his adventure in the bayou country was now nothing more than a memory.

But a sweet memory in a lot of ways, he thought as an image of Claudette floated in his mind for a moment.

Now it was time for him to get back to work. There was a new doorman at the entrance of the Brass Pelican, replacing the unfortunate Luther. This man wore a fancy uniform too, but since he was about half Luther's size, Longarm knew it wasn't the same outfit.

The club was busy, though not as packed as it had been two nights earlier before the raid by Royale's men. Such an incident would hurt Millard's business for a time, before everyone forgot about it. Royale might not allow anyone to forget what had happened, thought Longarm. There might be a recurrence at any time.

Paul Clement was bucking the tiger at the faro table tonight, and as usual, his sister Annie was at his side. Her face lit up in a smile as she saw Longarm making his way across the room toward them. "Look, Paul," Longarm heard her say as she clutched at her brother's arm. "It's Custis."

"So it is," said Clement as he looked up with his customary sardonic half-smile. He greeted Longarm by saying, "How are you, Custis? Annie here was quite worried about you last night. She expected to see you here again. She's been pestering Jasper about you all evening."

Annie blushed and looked down at the floor. "Really, Paul, you make it sound as if I was being silly," she protested. "Last night, I simply asked Mr. Millard where Custis was, and I've barely spoken to him this evening."

"What did Millard tell you?" asked Longarm.

"He said that you were handling some business for him, and that he hoped you'd be back tonight." Annie smiled again. "And here you are!" She sounded a little giddy, and Longarm suspected she'd had several glasses of wine.

"I'm sorry I missed you," he said, only half-sincere. The run-in with Royale's men hadn't been any fun, but it had led to his meeting with Claudette.

"Well, you're here now," said Annie, disengaging her arm from her brother's and linking it with Longarm's instead. Longarm thought he saw a flicker of disapproval on Clement's face, but he couldn't be sure about that. He knew that Clement regarded Annie as a lucky charm. She went on. "Why don't we get a drink?"

"Sure... if it's all right with Paul."

Clement flicked his wrist languidly. "Go ahead. I'm afraid not even the good luck Annie sometimes brings me could make me a winner tonight."

Longarm led Annie over to the bar. She chattered brightly in his ear along the way, but he didn't pay much attention to what she was saying. His eyes roved the room, searching for any sign of trouble, but everything seemed to be normal in the Brass Pelican tonight. He spotted Jasper Millard in his customary spot at the end of the bar. The club owner nodded to Longarm, smiling slightly. He wondered just how much of a pest Annie Clement had made of herself.

Annie drank several glasses of wine over the next couple of hours, and combined with what she had had before, it had quite an effect on her. Longarm had never cared for drunken women, but instead of getting sloppy and maudlin, Annie seemed to grow brighter and more animated the more she drank. She laughed merrily no matter what Longarm said to her. When she finally began to sway too much, he sat her down at one of the tables and continued to nurse his own drink, which was only his second. He wanted to stay clearheaded in case of trouble.

His thoughts never strayed far from the case that had brought him here. Earlier in the day, Millard had made that comment about alligators, but he had also responded with fervent disapproval to Longarm's question about voodoo. If Millard had been telling the truth about the way he felt, it was unlikely he had been responsible for leaving that half-doll on the doorstep of the chief marshal's office. He seemed not to want to have anything to do with such things, and he had scoffed at anybody who believed in them.

But had that ridicule been intended merely to cover up the man's own very real fear of voodoo? Longarm wondered. That was entirely possible.

Paul Clement wandered over and sat down at the table with them, sighing. "Ah, well, cleaned out again," he said. "I allow myself to lose only a certain amount on each night of our visits to New Orleans, and tonight I have reached my limit."

"Too bad," said Longarm. He glanced over at Annie, saw that she was looking off at the other side of the room and humming to herself, then added quietly, "I reckon your sister has just about reached her limit too."

Clement's mouth tightened. "Annie, have you had too much to drink again?"

She opened her mouth and stared at him for a moment before saying, "Paul, whatever do you mean? Custis and I have been having the most wonderful time-"

"You know that you don't feel well later on when you drink too much," said Clement, his attitude a mixture of solicitousness and impatience. "Why don't I take you home-"

"No!" exclaimed Annie. "I want Custis to take me home."

"I don't think that's a good idea." Clement glanced at Longarm. "No offense, Custis."

"None taken," Longarm assured him with a slight shake of his head.

"Custis will take me home," insisted Annie, "and he will take me upstairs, and then he-"

"That's enough, Annie." The hard edge of menace in Clement's tone made his sister fall silent. He reached across the table and took her hand. "Come along now."

Her lovely features set in a sullen pout, Annie allowed her brother to tug her to her feet. "G'night, Custis," she said, turning to Longarm. "Some other night..."

"Sure," he said. Truth to be told, he doubted if he would enjoy bedding Annie tonight. As much as she'd had to drink, she likely wouldn't remember anything in the morning, and she would also be liable to fall asleep and start snoring right in the middle of the festivities.

Clement led her out of the club. She was still only a little unsteady on her feet. The lady had quite a capacity, Longarm reflected, but as he had warned Clement, she had definitely reached her limits.

Millard came over to the table and took the seat Paul Clement had vacated. "Looked like Mademoiselle Annie had a little too much to drink," he said.

"Does she do that often?" Longarm asked curtly.

Millard shrugged. "I've only seen her that way once or twice. She was really shook up by you not being here last night." He grinned. "You'd better enjoy the lady while you've got the chance, Parker. Her brother keeps her on a pretty tight rein most of the time."

That was probably a good idea, thought Longarm. He changed the subject by saying, "Doesn't look like Royale is going to try anything tonight."

Millard was instantly serious again. "I don't know," he said dubiously. "After the past couple of days, I'll believe it when I see it."

In fact, the rest of the evening passed peacefully in the Brass Pelican. Not quietly, reflected Longarm, not with all the music and laughter, the clicking of poker chips and the roulette wheel, but definitely peacefully. The crowd began to thin out as the hours past midnight rolled by. At four o'clock, there were only a few persistent drinkers and gamblers in the place, and Longarm was starting to yawn.

He was leaning on the bar when Millard came over to him and said, "You might as well head back to your room, Parker. We'll be closing down in a few minutes."

"Wasn't sure a place like this ever closed," commented Longarm.

"Yeah, we lock up for a while. Gives the boys a chance to get a little sleep."

"Well, I'll stay until you're ready to call it a night," Longarm said. "Just in case Royale's trying to lull us into thinking we've made it through without any trouble."

Millard nodded, obviously understanding Longarm's point. Over the next half hour, though, as the last of the Brass Pelican's patrons were gradually eased out of the place, nothing unusual happened. Longarm was the last person out the door.

"No need for you to be back here until this evening," Millard told him.

"You're not planning any more trips down to the bayou country?"

Millard shook his head. "Not for a few more days. I'll let you know ahead of time, don't worry."

"All right," Longarm said with a nod. "See you tonight, Boss."

The door closed behind him, and Longarm heard the key turn in the lock. Behind the thick walls of the club, protected by well-armed guards, Millard ought to be safe enough.

The only way to get at him now, thought Longarm with a grin, was with some of that voodoo.

He chuckled tiredly to himself as he looked around for a cab. There were none to be seen. The customers who had departed recently had probably engaged all the cabs that normally hung around the outside of the club. Longarm grunted. Looked like he might have to walk back to the St. Charles. Well, it wasn't really all that far, he told himself.

Gallatin Street had calmed down a little due to the late hour, but it was still a busy place. Quite a few people were on the sidewalks, and Longarm kept a close eye on them as he strolled along. This was the sort of neighborhood where a fella could get his throat cut for his pocket watch--or even less. He remembered what Millard had said about how his friends and associates were safe in Gallatin Street, but that only applied if the would-be cutthroat knew that his intended victim was connected with Millard. Anybody could make a mistake.

No one bothered Longarm, however. People seemed to be minding their own business. A couple of whores tried to entice him into their cribs, but he just grinned, tipped his hat, and walked on.

Still, despite the lack of anything suspicious, Longarm felt the hair on the back of his neck beginning to rise. His years as a lawman had given him a finely honed instinct for trouble. Sometimes he thought it bordered on the downright supernatural, and he had learned to trust it. He glanced over his shoulder, saw nothing unusual, and walked on.

Gallatin Street merged with Decatur, and as Longarm left the notorious district behind, the city blocks became darker and more deserted. He could still hear music in the night and an occasional burst of laughter, but he was soon the only pedestrian in sight. His footsteps echoed hollowly against the walls of the buildings he passed.

Then, as if to confirm that his instincts were still true, the scrape of soft, dragging footsteps came from somewhere behind him.

Longarm's muscles tensed at the sound, but he kept walking, not wanting to betray by his actions that he had heard it. It was possible, of course, that whoever was walking back there had nothing at all to do with him.

Possible... but every nerve in his body was screaming that that was not the case.

Whoever it was didn't seem to be in any hurry. Longarm kept his own pace casual, deliberate. He passed underneath one of the gas street lamps of which the city fathers were so proud, walked on half a block, then glanced over his shoulder. He caught just a glimpse of a figure passing out of the circle of illumination. A big man, dressed in rough Work clothing. A stevedore from the docks, maybe. Just somebody on his way to work, Longarm told himself. Dawn was not far off, and dock workers started their day early.

The only problem with that theory was that the docks were in the other direction.

By now, Royale had to have figured out that Longarm was working for Jasper Millard. Royale's men would have seen him twice, once saving Millard from the bushwhack attempt during the raid on the club and again during the ambush down in the bayou country. They probably had a pretty good idea that he was Millard's new right-hand man. That would give Royale a good reason for wanting him dead--or better yet, a prisoner who could be interrogated and made to give up all of Millard's secrets.

As a point of fact, Longarm didn't really know any of Millard's secrets just yet. But Royale might not be aware of that.

Whether Royale wanted him killed or captured didn't really matter. Longarm didn't intend to allow either of those things to come to pass.

He walked under another street light, still taking it slow and easy. From the sound of the footsteps behind him, the fella who was shuffling along back there had closed up the gap a little. But he wasn't in any hurry either. He sure did drag his feet too, noted Longarm. The footsteps were slow but inexorable, and they came steadily closer.

Longarm glanced back again, and this time he got a better look at his follower. The man was so tall and broad-shouldered that he reminded Longarm of a medium-sized tree. His arms hung limply at his sides and seemed to dangle almost to his knees. His dark, curly hair was cut short, and in the light of the street lamp, his skin was like rich chocolate.

Why would some gigantic black fella be following him? Longarm wondered. The man wasn't wearing a derby and a bandanna mask, and he didn't strike Longarm as the type that Royale would have hired in the first place. All the rest of Royale's paid killers had been white.

Longarm reached a corner and turned, not even noticing what street he was on. He just wanted to give the slip to the man trailing him, then turn the tables and do a little trailing of his own. His two looks back should have given the big black man the idea that he realized he was being followed. Now Longarm ducked into the first alley mouth he found, letting the shadows swallow him. He waited for the slap-slap of running footsteps as the man hurried to catch up to him.

Instead, the slow shuffle continued. Longarm had no trouble knowing where the man was just by listening. The man reached the corner and rounded it, coming steadily toward the alley where Longarm was hidden. The lawman waited, drawing his Colt as the steps came nearer.

But instead of stopping, the man plodded right past the darkened mouth of the alley. Longarm saw him, a huge patch of deeper darkness in the shadows that cloaked the street.

The man continued for several steps, and as he did Longarm wondered if he had been completely mistaken about being followed. From the looks of it, the man didn't have any interest in him at all.

But then the man stopped short, as if drawn up at the end of a rope. He stood there for a long moment, just past the alley mouth, and then slowly, ponderously, he began to turn around. He moved toward the alley, lifting his arms as he came. The fingers on the ham-like hands spread out, as if ready to wrap themselves around somebody's neck.

Longarm was certain now just whose neck the fella was after.

He stepped out of the alley before the man could get there, raising his gun and pointing it toward the giant, menacing shape. "Hold it right there, old son," Longarm said. "I don't know what business you got with me, but I reckon we can talk it over."

He thought there was still plenty of room between them, but he hadn't counted on the man being able to cover that distance in one huge step. The man lurched forward, reaching out with those long fingers. There was a certain awkwardness about his movements, but he was quick enough.

Almost quick enough anyway. Longarm twisted aside so that the giant stumbled past him. "Damn it!" Longarm snapped in frustration. He didn't want to have to kill the man. A corpse couldn't answer any questions.

The giant caught himself and swung around, lashing out with an arm and trying to backhand Longarm. Longarm ducked underneath the blow, letting it pass harmlessly over his head. Once the man started something, he seemed unable to stop until he had completed the action, whatever it was. Maybe he was a mite slow in the head, thought Longarm. The expression on the man's face when he passed beneath that second street lamp had been rather dull, and the threat of Longarm's gun seemed utterly meaningless to him.

Longarm danced back along the sidewalk, putting himself out of reach again. "Blast it, old son," he grated, "I'm going to have to put a bullet in your knee if you don't settle down. You won't ever walk right again if I do that."

The man made no response except to lurch toward Longarm again. In fact, Longarm realized as a cold touch rippled up his spine, the man hadn't made a sound during the entire encounter. Longarm hadn't heard anything from him except the shuffle and scrape of his shoes on the cobblestones. The fella wasn't even breathing heavy.

The coldness along Longarm's spine got even icier as he realized that he couldn't tell if the man was breathing at all.

He shoved that thought out of his mind and darted aside, avoiding the giant's lunge once more. This time, however, the man seemed more prepared for Longarm's response. He reached back, even as he was stumbling to a halt, and caught hold of Longarm's coat sleeve.

The man's strength was like nothing Longarm had ever faced before. He found himself literally jerked off his feet and swung around. His back slammed into the wall of a building, knocking the air out of his lungs and the hat off his head. As he bounced off the wall, the giant's other hand clamped onto his throat.

Caught like that with no air in his body, Longarm felt the desperation of a dying man almost as soon as the fingers closed around his throat in a grip like iron. His vision turned red and muddy, and he could barely make out the huge shape looming right in front of him. He slashed at where he thought the man's head was with the barrel of the Colt and felt it strike something soft and yielding. Almost in a frenzy, Longarm lashed out again and again, pistol-whipping the man who was trying to kill him.

The fingers locked around his throat didn't budge.

The fight continued in eerie silence. Longarm's feet were off the ground. The giant pressed him back against the brick wall of the building, supporting him with that dreadful grip around his throat. Longarm felt his strength ebbing away, and couldn't lift the gun to hit the man again. The part of his brain that was still working told him he was going to pass out in a matter of seconds, and if he did, he knew he would never wake up this side of the grave.

There was only one thing he could do, while he still had a little strength.

He jammed the barrel of the gun against the body of his attacker and started pulling the trigger.

The massive body muffled the roar of the shots to a certain extent, but they were still so deafening to Longarm that they almost drowned out the insane pounding of blood in his head. He emptied the Colt of all five shots and wished he had loaded the empty chamber for a change, rather than letting the hammer rest on it. For a horrible moment, he thought that the bullets hadn't had any effect, because the giant kept choking the life out of him.

How can you kill something that's already dead?

He forced that thought out of his mind as he felt a slight lessening of the pressure on his windpipe. Maybe it was just his imagination, maybe just wishful thinking, but he wasn't going to let it pass. He dropped the empty gun, grabbed the giant's arm with both hands, and wrenched with every bit of strength left in his body.

The fingers slipped off his throat.

Longarm shoved the giant's arm away and heaved great, gasping breaths into his body, filling his lungs. He slid along the wall of the building, out of the giant's reach. He was in such bad shape that if the man came after him again, he wouldn't even be able to put up a fight.

But the giant wasn't coming after him. In the dim light from the street lamps on Decatur, Longarm saw that the man was swaying back and forth, and then he began to slowly topple backward, reminding Longarm once again of a tree. Still without making a sound, he crashed to the cobblestones and lay motionless, arms and legs spraddled out.

Longarm's head was still spinning, but he knew he couldn't wait for the world to settle down in front of his eyes. He stumbled forward, bent over, and fumbled around on the street until he found his gun. He scooped it up and backed quickly away from the fallen giant, putting his back against the wall of the building once more so that nothing else could come at him out of the dark. Moving as much by instinct as by design, he dumped the empty brass from the cylinder of the Colt and thumbed in fresh cartridges that he took from his coat pocket.

Only when the gun was fully loaded did he approach the dead man again. The fella had to be dead, Longarm told himself. He had five slugs in him, enough to kill anybody. But those shots should have dropped him immediately, and it had taken him forever to go down. At least it had seemed like forever to Longarm.

Longarm was ready to pump five more bullets into him if necessary, though. He wanted a better look at this man who had almost killed him. Somebody had probably reported those shots, and the New Orleans police would be here soon.

With the gun held ready in his right hand, Longarm used his left to fish out a lucifer. He bent over and struck the match on the rough surface of the street. It flared up with a stink of sulphur. Which made sense, thought Longarm, because he had surely descended into the fiery pits of Hades. Either that or gone mad, because staring up at him was the face of Luther.

Luther, the former doorman at the Brass Pelican. Luther, who had been murdered two nights earlier by Royale's men.

Longarm had almost had the life choked out of him by a walking dead man.

CHAPTER 9

For a moment, there was a part of Longarm that wanted to drop the match and run like hell. He knew now why Billy Vail had asked him if he was superstitious. The voodoo angle to this case had sort of faded into the background as Longarm got caught up in investigating the rival smuggling rings headed by Jasper Millard and the mysterious Royale.

But it had just poked its ugly head into things again, sure enough, because Longarm was staring down in horror at an honest-to-God zombie.

Or was he?

The rational part of Longarm's brain began to reassert itself. He recalled how Luther had stumbled into the Brass Pelican, gut-shot by Royale's men. The body sprawled on its back in the street had a huge bloodstain on its midsection where Longarm had emptied the Colt into it. That matched Luther's stomach wound, of course, but how could a man who had been dead for over forty-eight hours bleed that much?

But then, how could a man who had been dead for over forty-eight hours be wandering around the streets of NewOrleans and trying to murder federal lawmen? Longarm gave a little shake of his head, trying to keep his mind from wandering too far off down dark paths.

Quickly, before the match went out, Longarm holstered his gun and reached down to grasp the dead man's shoulder. There was one sure test. He had seen Luther shot at nearly point-blank range in the back of the head by one of Royale's men. With a grunt of effort, Longarm heaved the massive corpse onto its side. He held the match closer to the back of the dead man's skull.

There was no bullet hole, no sign of a wound of any kind. With a sigh of relief, Longarm let go of the body and let it slump onto its back again.

So this dead man wasn't Luther after all. He just looked a hell of a lot like the doorman from the Brass Pelican.

Which still didn't answer the question of why he had been trying to kill Longarm... or why he had shuffled along the way he had... or why he had fought in complete silence and stood up for so long against the impact of five slugs from a.44.

Zombie. The word echoed in Longarm's brain.

Grimacing, he shook out the match just before it could burn his fingers and backed away from the body. He turned around and found his hat, picking it up and putting it on as he walked quickly along the street. He headed away from Decatur Street and soon found himself on Chartres Street. The mansion where Annie and Paul Clement lived when they were visiting New Orleans wasn't far from where he was, he realized. He wondered how they would react if he knocked on their door in the cold gray light of dawn and told them he'd just had a run-in with a walking dead man. They'd probably try to have him locked up in an asylum somewhere.

Maybe that was where he belonged. He had always been a rational, pragmatic, even hardheaded man. Carrying a badge made a fella that way. Now here he was thinking all sorts of wild thoughts, considering possibilities that he never would have dreamed he would consider.

There had to be an explanation. There just had to be.

But as he made his way back to the St. Charles Hotel by a roundabout route, he was damned if he could think of what it might be.

He slept the sleep of exhaustion--slept like a dead man, he told himself wryly when he woke up in the middle of the afternoon--but he didn't feel particularly rested. When he showed up at the Brass Pelican after a meal and several cups of strong black coffee, he felt a little better, but the bartender who was working behind the mahogany took one look at him and said, "Lord, you look like death warmed over, Mr. Parker."

Longarm rubbed his jaw and said hoarsely, "Didn't figure I looked that good."

"You coming down with the grippe? I can fix up a tonic for that."

Longarm shook his head. "No, I just... strained my throat, I reckon you could say. It's getting better, but thanks anyway."

"Well, if you change your mind, just let me know."

This fella was a lot friendlier than the one who had unlocked the door for Longarm the day before. Of course, the club was open for business now, so that might have had something to do with his helpful attitude. Longarm looked around the big room. There were quite a few customers drinking and gambling, though not nearly as many as there would be later.

He turned back to the bar and said, "I could use a cup of coffee. And put a dollop of Tom Moore in it."

"Coming right up, Mr. Parker."

When he had first gotten up, Longarm had barely been able to talk at all, and swallowing had been hell. But the muscles in his bruised throat had loosened up, and hot coffee seemed to help the soreness. He was only a little hoarse now, and the discomfort was tolerable. It could have been a lot worse.

He could have been dead, like that poor son of a bitch he'd had to shoot.

The more he thought about it, the more he wondered if the fella had been drugged. In the horror of the night before, Longarm hadn't really considered that possibility. It made more sense than believing in voodoo and zombies, though. Longarm recalled seeing Chinese hatchet men who had smoked so much opium that they might not have noticed right away if somebody emptied a Colt into their bellies.

Maybe Royale had sent the gigantic black man after him. Maybe that was just a new weapon in the war against Millard and anybody who worked for him.

Longarm sipped the coffee the bartender brought to him, feeling the bracing effect of the Maryland rye that had been added to it. He turned to the man and asked, "Where's Mr. Millard? Back in the office?"

The bartender took out his watch and glanced at it. "He's probably upstairs. He usually takes one of the girls up to his room about this time of day, if you know what I mean."

Longarm did indeed. Some men liked their loving on a regular schedule.

Carrying the coffee cup, Longarm wandered around the room, watching the players at the poker tables, the blackjack tables, the roulette wheel, and the faro bank. Not a lot of money was changing hands. The really big players, like Paul Clement, usually showed up at night. For a while, he sat down at an empty table and sipped the rest of the coffee, then got up and walked rather aimlessly toward the door that led to the rear hallway. No one challenged him as he slipped through it and headed for Millard's office.

He hoped that Millard was also a man who liked to take his time when bedding a woman, because Longarm intended to have a look in the office and see what he could find.

The corridor was empty. Longarm checked the knob of the office door, and found it unlocked. He rapped lightly on the panel, and when he got no response, opened the door silently and stepped into the office.

The lamp on Millard's desk was turned down low, but it was lit. Longarm didn't know if that meant Millard would be back soon or not. He eased the door shut behind him, then stepped quickly to the desk. Unless he knew better, he was going to assume there was no time to waste.

Longarm had searched desks before, and he made fast work of this one. He found nothing unusual at first, just the typical paperwork that went with any legitimate business. And for New Orleans, the Brass Pelican was a legitimate business. It was Millard's smuggling activities that put him on the wrong side of the law.

Longarm also found a couple of pistols, a Bowie knife, a bottle of cognac like the one he had shared with Millard and the Clements on his first night in the Crescent City, and a smaller bottle of dark brown glass. It had a cork stopper in its neck, and when Longarm pulled it and took a sniff, he recognized the heavy, sweetish smell of laudanum. With a grimace, he replaced the cork and put the bottle back in the drawer where he had found it.

Whatever drug that giant had been full of, it was even stronger than laudanum, thought Longarm.

Under a litter of old lottery tickets in the last drawer he checked, he found a small notebook. Flipping it open, he saw that someone, no doubt Millard, had used it to keep track of shipping activities. The names of ships, departure dates, and destinations had all been written down in a scrawling, looping hand. Longarm turned to the last page where entries had been made. Four ships were listed there, and the date of their departure had been one day before Longarm arrived in New Orleans.

Their destination was listed as Saint Laurent.

Longarm frowned. Saint Laurent was the West Indian island where Annie and Paul Clement lived most of the year, where they had their ancestral sugar plantation. Though Longarm hadn't run across any evidence linking them with Millard's smuggling operation, he could conceive of Millard and Paul Clement joining forces to bring in shiploads of contraband sugar. From what he had seen and heard so far, however, Clement paid the import fees and sold his sugar on the exchange, all open and aboveboard.

Maybe Millard and Clement were smuggling in something else, although for the life of him, Longarm couldn't figure out what it might be. Or maybe Millard was smuggling something into Saint Laurent for the Clements, but again, Longarm had no idea what. And it was always possible that the ships bound for the West Indies had nothing to do with Annie and her brother at all.

Longarm knew he would have to ponder those questions later, maybe do a little poking around down on the docks. For now, he closed the notebook and replaced it under the lottery tickets where he had found it.

Just in time too, because he heard footsteps in the hall and Millard's voice. By the time the club owner opened the door and stepped into the room, Longarm was lounging in the chair in front of the desk, right foot cocked on left knee, one of the Cuban cigars smoldering in his fingers. He looked up and around at Millard, who had stopped short just inside the door, and put a slightly sheepish grin on his face. "Aw, hell," said Longarm, "you caught me."

"What are you doing in here, Parker?" Millard asked sharply.

Longarm gestured with the cigar. "I got a hankering for another of these fancy see-gars of yours, Boss. Didn't think you'd mind if I helped myself to one."

"Well, you thought wrong," snapped Millard. "I don't like people poking around my office."

Well then, old son, you ought to keep it locked, thought Longarm, but he said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Millard. I didn't mean no harm."

Millard came around behind the desk and sat down. "Don't let it happen again," he grunted as his gaze quickly darted around the top of the desk. Longarm knew he was checking to see if anything had been disturbed. Millard wouldn't be able to tell by looking that the desk had been searched. Longarm was too good at his job for that; everything had been put back exactly the way he'd found it.

"Any sign of trouble from Royale today?" asked Longarm, partly out of curiosity, partly to distract Millard from finding him in here.

Millard shook his bald head. "It's been quiet. Maybe too quiet."

That was a suspicious nature working on Millard, thought Longarm. After everything that had happened, he would spook pretty easily. Longarm told himself to remember that; it might come in handy later on. In the meantime, he was wondering about something else. In a tone calculated to seem only idly curious, he said, "That fella Luther who was your doorman, the one who was killed by Royale's men that first night... did he have a brother?"

Millard looked at him with a confused frown. "Not that I know of," he said. "Why do you ask?"

"Well... you might think this is a little strange but I would have sworn I saw Luther on the street last night when I was going home." Longarm didn't say anything about being followed, or the fight with the massive black man, or the fact that for a few harrowing moments, it had seemed like even bullets weren't enough to take down the man.

Millard stared at him for a second, then clenched a fist and brought it down hard on the desk. "Shit!" he exploded. "I knew better... I knew we shouldn't-"

Longarm sensed that he was on the verge of something important here, and it was all he could do not to lean forward eagerly. All he could do was allow himself to appear mildly surprised by Millard's reaction. "What's the matter, Boss?" he asked. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No, damn it, it's just... Are you sure you saw Luther?"

Longarm looked perplexed. "Why, how could I do that? He's dead. I just figured I saw somebody who looked a whole lot like him. That's why I asked you if he had a brother."

"I don't know," Millard said with a shake of his head. "Could be, could be. I suppose that has to be the explanation." He didn't sound completely convinced of that, however.

Longarm forced a chuckle. "The only other thing I could think of was that maybe Luther had been turned into one of those, what you call 'em, zombies or something. After all, this is New Orleans."

The comment provoked a reaction from Millard, just as Longarm had thought it might. Once again the man thumped his fist on the desk and said tautly, "Forget it. That's all just a bunch of made-up mumbo jumbo, and I don't want to hear another damn word about it, understand?" His voice rose as he spoke.

"Sure, Boss, sure," murmured Longarm. He was convinced now that Millard was scared to death of the very idea of voodoo and zombies and such. That meant he was unlikely to have been the one who'd planted the mutilated doll representing Douglas Ramsey on the chief marshal's doorstep.

But that still left Royale.

Longarm went on. "I've been thinking that if we could get a line on Royale, maybe find out who he is-"

"I've tried," Millard broke in. "Lord knows, I've tried. Nobody seems to be able to touch him."

Before Longarm could continue the discussion, there was a soft knock on the office door. At a gesture from Millard, Longarm got up and moved to the side of the door. With all the trouble that had been going on lately, it paid to be cautious. He drew his gun and called, "Yeah?"

The voice of the bartender Longarm had spoken to earlier said, "That you, Mr. Parker? You're the one I need to see, and I thought you might be in there with the boss."

Longarm opened the door a crack and saw the man standing in the corridor alone. No one was forcing him to say anything at gunpoint. Longarm hadn't really expected that to be the case, but it didn't hurt to be sure.

"What is it?" asked Longarm.

"There's somebody out here looking for you, Mr. Parker," replied the bartender. "She says you know her."

"Miss Clement?"

The bartender shook his head. "No, sir, she's, ah, definitely not Miss Clement."

Longarm glanced back at Millard, who shook his head. "I don't know anything about it, Parker. You'll have to go see for yourself."

"I'll do that," Longarm said. He holstered his gun and opened the door wide enough so that he could step out into the corridor. He followed the bartender back to the main room, and as they walked along the hallway, the man said, "I hated to bother you while you were talking to Mr. Millard, but the lady was very insistent that she see you."

"Well, I'm glad you fetched me then," said Longarm, deliberately keeping his tone light. "A fella never likes to keep a lady waiting for too long."

They stepped out into the main room of the club, and Longarm's companion pointed toward the bar. "There she is, over there."

Longarm looked where he was pointing and stopped short in surprise.

Standing nervously near the end of the bar, darting occasional glances at the door as if she thought this was a bad idea and wanted to flee, was Claudette.

CHAPTER 10

Longarm managed to overcome his surprise enough to put a smile of welcome on his face as he got his muscles working again and walked toward Claudette. He held out his hands and took hold of both of hers. "It's good to see you," he said honestly. "What are you doing here?"

"Thought I come to see you, me," she said. "Time I got away from that bayou, you bet."

The words were brave, but Longarm wasn't sure how sincere they were. There was a look in her eyes like a wild animal might have had after being dropped down in a place like this. The crowd inside the Brass Pelican, though small by some standards, probably seemed huge to her. And the noise--the piano, the spinning of the roulette wheel, the shrill laughter and coarse talk--had to be unsettling to someone accustomed to the whisper of the wind and the cry of the loon.

Some of the club's customers were openly staring at her too, which had to make her even more nervous. Longarm took her arm, clasping it just above the elbow in a gentle grip, and led her toward one of the empty tables. "Let's sit down," he suggested.

He noticed that Millard had emerged from the door to the rear corridor and was watching them curiously, but he didn't approach them. Millard had to be wondering who Claudette was, thought Longarm.

At the moment, she didn't look much like the bayou gal she had been the last time Longarm had seen her. She had cleaned herself up and was wearing a simple, inexpensive gray dress. The other women in the Brass Pelican were dressed in much finer clothes, but none of them could hold a candle to Claudette when it came to sheer beauty. Her nervousness had reminded Longarm of a wild animal; she had a wild animal's fresh, unspoiled, clean-limbed beauty as well. Which did even more than her clothes to make her seem out of place in the gambling club.

Longarm held her chair for her and then sat down beside her. "I'm mighty flattered you'd come all this way to see me," he told her. "You didn't have to do that."

"I wanted to. Been too long in the bayous, me. The world is big-big. Thought it was time to see some more of her."

Longarm could understand that. He had been fiddle-footed himself after the war, like a lot of young men. That restlessness had led him to go West, also like a lot of others. So he knew what Claudette meant about wanting to see something different. She might never be truly happy for long out of the bayou country, but for now a change of scenery wouldn't hurt her.

"How'd you find me?" he asked her. "I don't recollect mentioning that I worked here."

"You did not. I talk to that farmer man who bring you into town, I did. I know 'most ever'body round them bayous and shinneries, so it didn't take long to find him. He tell me he sees you walk off toward this street when he stop at the French Market, so I come a-knockin' on doors, askin' folks what answer if they know this mos' handsome man name of Custis."

He tried not to grin at the flattery. From what she was saying, he had made quite an impression on her. They'd had a lot of fun on the bunk in that cabin of hers, but he didn't think that was enough to bring her all the way up here.

He hoped she hadn't convinced herself that she was in love with him.

That was a sobering thought. Longarm said, "I'm glad you came for a visit, but-"

"No visit," she broke in. "Stay here in N'Awleans, I will. Get me a job." She looked around. "Maybe workin' in a place like this." Longarm shook his head. "You don't want to work here."

"Why not? You do," she pointed out with impeccable logic.

"That's different. I'm a man, and you're-"

She pointed at one of Millard's hostesses, who was wearing a lacy, low-cut gown and hanging on the arm of a gambler at the roulette table. "I could do a job like that," said Claudette. "Look pretty an' be nice to the gentlemans."

That was true enough, Longarm supposed. Claudette was certainly pretty enough to be one of the Brass Pelican's hostesses. But he knew there was more to their job than that. Some of them worked the upstairs rooms, and they also had to make themselves available to Millard whenever he wanted one of them. Working at the Brass Pelican was a step up from whoring on the street and in the cribs--but only a step.

"Forget it," Longarm said flatly. "You don't want to work here, Claudette."

Her eyes widened with hurt. "You don't want me here, you."

"That's not it-"

"Ashamed that you even know a bayou gal like me, you bet." She started to stand up. "Well, I won't bother you no more, Custis. I be gone out of here, and you not have to see me again."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Longarm said in exasperation. "Let's eat this apple one bite at a time. Do you mean you're going back to the bayou country?"

She shook her head emphatically. "No. I stay here in N'Awleans, fin' me some other job to do."

Longarm sighed. If she stayed here, unaccustomed to city life, with no friends and no money, she would be working the streets within a week. He was certain of it. And he didn't want that for Claudette. She deserved better. If he got her a job here at the Brass Pelican, at least he could keep an eye on her.

"All right," he said. "I ain't promising nothing, but I'll see what I can do. I'll go talk to the boss right now."

A smile lit up her face. "You would do this for me?"

"Sure." Under his breath, he added, "Don't reckon I've got much choice."

With all the threads of the investigation he had picked up, anxious to follow them to their source, this problem with Claudette was an unwelcome distraction. But then, most of life was a distraction, and a hell of a lot of it was unwelcome, he reflected. He'd just have to make do as best he could, and by the time he wrapped up the case and left New Orleans, maybe Claudette would be ready to go back home.

While Claudette waited anxiously at the table, Longarm went over to Jasper Millard, who was standing at the end of the bar, and said, "Boss, I've got a favor to ask of you."

"I'm not sure you've been working for me long enough to ask favors, Parker," said Millard. "But then, you seem to figure you've got some special privileges."

Clearly, Millard hadn't forgotten about finding Longarm in the office. Longarm said, "I told you, that won't happen again." He shook his head. "Lord, the trouble a man gets into sometimes just because he wants a smoke."

In spite of himself, Millard chuckled. "Go ahead, Parker," he said. "Ask your favor. I'm not promising anything, but I'll listen."

"Thanks. You see that lady over there at the table, the one who came looking for me?"

Millard glanced over at Claudette, then looked again. "She's a good looker. Friend of yours?"

"You could say that. She's trying to find a job."

"And she wants to work here? She must really want to spend time around you, Parker."

Longarm gave a slight shrug. "I told her I'd ask you about it."

"Let me see..." Millard studied Claudette for a long moment, then said, "At first glance, she doesn't seem the type. But if she was cleaned up a little more and borrowed some dresses from the other girls... I suppose I could use her. If that's what you really want, Parker."

Longarm wasn't sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. "I'm much obliged, Boss," he told Millard. "I'll tell her she's got the job."

"Why don't you let me do that?" asked Millard, surprising Longarm. Without waiting for Longarm's reply, he sauntered over to the table where Claudette waited. Her eyes got big as he approached.

"Welcome to the Brass Pelican, my dear," Millard said as he came up to the table. He leaned over, took Claudette's hand, and brushed his lips across the back of it. It would have been difficult to say who was more surprised, Claudette or Longarm. Millard went on. "Our mutual friend Mr. Parker tells me that you'd like to work here. As it turns out, I'm in need of another hostess, so if you'd like the job..."

"Oh, Lordy, I sure would, me," said Claudette breathlessly. "Thank you, Mr.?"

"Millard, Jasper Millard. I'm sure we'll become very well acquainted while you're here, my dear."

Longarm's hackles rose at the suggestive tone in Millard's voice, but he drew a tight rein on his temper. Claudette was a grown woman, and she hadn't been a virgin when he met her. So she wasn't completely unaware of the ways of the world. He would look out for her as best he could, but she would also have to take care of herself. Besides, no one had appointed him her guardian.

Millard crooked a finger at one of the hostesses, a blonde in a tight red dress. "Tessie, this is... I'm sorry, I don't know your name, my dear."

"Claudette," she supplied with a smile.

"This is Claudette, Tessie," continued Millard. "Take her upstairs, get her settled in, and see about arranging for the temporary loan of several gowns. Claudette's going to be working here, and since she's a friend of Mr. Parker's, I want her treated right."

The blonde glanced at Longarm, shrugged, and nodded. Clearly, the fact that Claudette was his friend didn't really mean anything to her, but she would do whatever Millard told her.

"Come on, honey," she said to Claudette. "I'll take care of YOU."

Claudette stood up, smiled nervously at Longarm and Millard, and followed Tessie upstairs. Millard turned to Longarm and asked, "Satisfied, Parker?"

"I reckon we'll see," said Longarm.

Tessie came back downstairs a little later and told Longarm and Millard, "This is going to take a while. I've got her soaking in a hot tub, and she doesn't act like she wants to get out. I think this might be the first real bath she's ever had!"

Longarm figured that was possible. Since it was still fairly early and the crowd in the club was still small, he said to Millard, "I think I'll go get a bite to eat, if that's all right with you, Boss?"

Millard waved a hand. "Sure, go ahead. Just don't get lost. If Annie Clement's in here tonight, I don't want her spending the whole evening asking me where you are."

Longarm grinned ruefully at the thought of Annie and Claudette being in the same place at the same time. That was a definite likelihood. He might be wise to keep them apart as much as possible.

As if reading Longarm's mind, Millard chuckled and said, "Didn't think of that when you asked me to hire her, did you?"

"Well, to be honest, no," admitted Longarm. "But I reckon I'll just have to make the best of it now. I'll worry about it after supper."

He left the club, but he wasn't looking for something to eat. Instead, he headed for the docks. That notebook he had discovered in Millard's desk earlier in the day still bothered him. Or rather, not the notebook itself, but the information he had found written down in it. He was still intensely curious about those ships that had left New Orleans bound for Saint Laurent.

Gallatin Street was only a block away from the river, but the levee area was around the great curve of the Mississippi that gave New Orleans its nickname of the Crescent City. Where Canal Street met the waterfront was the hub of the shipping industry. Longarm spent the next hour roaming through the area. Ships were docked two and three deep at the wharves. Loading and unloading began before dawn and went on by torchlight until well after midnight. From the north came the riverboats with their tall smokestacks and their paddle wheels. The goods they brought downriver were transferred onto tall-masted sailing ships that would ply the waters of the Gulf and then head across the Atlantic to Europe. Likewise, the cargoes they brought on their return voyages were loaded onto the steamships and carried back up the mighty Mississippi. It was a thriving trade, with merchandise of every conceivable kind passing through this port.

At the moment, however, Longarm was interested only in the ships that had sailed for Saint Laurent, so he asked around until someone pointed him toward a burly black stevedore who reminded him somewhat uncomfortably of the man Longarm had been forced to kill the night before.

"Howdy," Longarm said to the man, who was taking a break after loading some crates onto a riverboat.

Immediately, the man looked suspiciously at him and said, "What you want, Boss?" He had the lilting accent of the West Indies in his voice.

Longarm shook his head. "I ain't nobody's boss. I'm just looking for a little information."

"I don' know nothin' 'bout nothin'," the dockworker said flatly.

"I'm told you were around a few days ago when some ships left here bound for an island called Saint Laurent. The ships were the Erasmus, the Bonneville-"

"I know de ships you talkin' 'bout. Dey belong to Mr. Millard. I done worked on dem before."

Longarm was surprised the man admitted so easily that the ships belonged to Millard. He asked, "Did you load them this time?"

"No, Boss," the man said with a fervent shake of his head. "Mr. Millard's men, dey load dem ships, tell us to stay away from 'em."

Longarm frowned. "So there was cargo on the ships when they sailed, but none of the regular dockworkers loaded it?"

"No, Boss. Dey load dem ships in de middle o' de night, so nobody aroun'. Why you wanna know 'bout dis'? You a lawman?"

That guess hit way too close to home. Longarm laughed harshly, then declared, "Not hardly. I'm just a fella who's got an interest in what Millard does."

The dockworker stood up quickly and began to move away. "You jus' leave me outta dis, Boss," he said, sounding frightened now. "Don' wan' nothin' t' do with dat Royale. You white folks jus' keeps your troubles to yourselves."

"Wait a minute-"

But the man wouldn't listen to Longarm. He hurried away, casting nervous glances over his shoulder as he did so.

Well, at least he had learned a few things, Longarm told himself. The ships had definitely been carrying cargo when they left New Orleans bound for Saint Laurent, but that cargo was a secret and had been taken on board under cover of night by Millard's own men, rather than the usual dockworkers.

Word of the intensifying conflict between Millard and Royale had reached the docks too. In fact, the man Longarm had just been talking to had taken him for an agent of Royale's. Longarm hoped that suspicion didn't get back to Millard's ears any time soon. Millard already seemed to trust him a little less after the incident in the office.

Longarm stopped and got a quick bite to eat on his way back to the gambling club. The streets were growing fuller. In fact, the crowds were building to a downright throng. With a frown, Longarm stopped and thought about what day it was, then closed his eyes and winced.

It was Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras. Tonight would be the busiest night of the year in New Orleans, complete with the traditional parade with showy, elaborate floats put together by the krewes, the societies devoted to such activities. The celebration would go on until dawn, at least. What a night for Claudette to start working at the Brass Pelican.

Longarm shook his head and moved on, grinning at the costumed people who were beginning to appear on the streets. He saw men masquerading as devils, pirates, wild Indians, and clowns. Women seemed to prefer more sedate costumes. Many of them were made up to look like Marie Antoinette, complete with beauty spots, powdered wigs, and gowns cut so low that often the upper rings of their nipples were visible. It was already a spectacle, and would be more so before the night was over.