Bayou Pirates Page 20

  After they finished talking to the paramedics, Holm and Nina joined me outside.

  “Well, I guess my cover is blown,” she said bitterly. “Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.”

  “What happened before we got there?” I asked her.

  She sighed and then detailed a story about being ruthlessly questioned by the two enormous gangbangers we’d killed, Ice and Bruise. I gathered their mothers hadn’t given them those names.

  “So, they were basically vetting you before giving you more responsibilities with this new drug?” Holm asked when she had finished. “Weird.”

  “Come on. We might as well grab some food while we’re down here,” I suggested, waving for them to follow me. “Bourbon Street’s not far from here. We can grab a bite and then head over to this voodoo shop.”

  “Do you have the journal with you?” Holm asked eagerly as he and Nina rushed to follow me. “Didn’t you say that bookshop was in this area?”

  Nina gave me a quizzical look.

  “What journal?” she asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” I said, waving a hand dismissively. “Just a side project I’ve been working on. And yeah, I do have it with me. I guess it can’t hurt to stop by while we’re in the area. I’ll have to go grab it from the car first.”

  I jogged over to Holm and my rental car and grabbed the journal out of the glove box, where I’d wrapped it to keep it from getting damaged in the Louisiana heat.

  Then I returned to Holm and Nina and walked with them down to Bourbon Street.

  “Now, you’re definitely going to have to explain this to me,” Nina said, giving me a pointed look as we rounded a corner and approached a small sandwich shop.

  I walked up to a window and ordered a sandwich, gesturing for Holm and Nina to do the same after me. It wasn’t long before the man behind the counter came back with our meals. Mine was a po’ boy filled with lobster and slathered in butter and creole seasoning. We gathered to eat at a small table outside the restaurant.

  “To Lucas,” Holm said, holding up his drink. “We didn’t know him well, or for long, but he was a good officer.”

  “To Lucas,” Nina and I both murmured in assent, holding up our own drinks in turn.

  “Man, I love this job, but sometimes,” Nina said, shaking her head as she brought her soda to her lips.

  “I know,” I sighed. I felt sick about what happened to Lucas. “But that’s the job. That’s the price of having such great lives and getting to help so many people.”

  Holm and Nina both nodded in agreement with this, their expressions somber.

  We ate in silence for some time after that, before Nina turned to me and smiled.

  “What is this journal you were all talking about?” she asked.

  I gave her a brief rundown of everything to do with Grendel and the Dragon’s Rogue.

  “So, you weren’t kidding about the whole buried treasure thing,” she said when I finished, her mouth hanging slightly ajar.

  “No, not in the slightest,” I chuckled.

  She looked back at Holm.

  “Is he messing with me?” she asked, jerking her thumb in my direction.

  “Oh, no,” Holm laughed. “He wouldn’t dream of it. Not on this subject, at least. This is all very serious for him.”

  “My grandfather spent pretty much his whole life looking for the Dragon’s Rogue,” I explained. “He passed it on to me, and it all makes more sense now that I know I’m related to Lord Finch-Hatton.”

  “Man, we don’t get anything this exciting in the FBI,” Nina mused, taking a bite out of her own sandwich, which looked to contain some kind of fried shrimp and calamari. “Maybe everyone’s just been underestimating these smaller agencies.”

  “MBLIS is where it’s at. I’m telling you,” I chuckled as I finished off my sandwich. It was possibly the best thing I’d ever tasted, washed down with a satisfyingly sweet soda pop. “You should join us.”

  “Oh, no, I think my army friends would have something to say about that,” she laughed, elbowing me playfully in the side. “MBLIS is more of a Navy organization, as you two former SEALS probably know already.”

  “There is that age-old rivalry,” I agreed with another chuckle. “Keeps all of us fresh, you might say.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” Nina said. Then, seeing that we were all finished with our meals, “Come on, we should go.”

  We got up, cleared away our trash, and headed down Bourbon Street until we rounded a corner to a dingy back alley that contained a small shop lined with windows full of old books.

  “I think this is our stop,” I said, gesturing up at it. There was no sign or anything. “Tessa said to ask for Percy, so I suppose that’s what I’ll do.”

  The shop was wooden from floor to ceiling and packed to the brim with old books and papers. It had the distinct scent of dust and old leather, and it was hard to maneuver around all the stacks of books until we reached the front desk, behind which a middle-aged woman was sitting, spectacles perched on the edge of her nose.

  She didn’t seem to notice us at first, but when she did, she was clearly taken aback, clutching her chest in surprise. I didn’t get the sense that they got many customers.

  “Oh, you gave me a scare,” she breathed. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “I suppose not,” I chuckled. “I was wondering if Percy was in? A mutual friend, George, sent me. Said he might be able to help me with an old book that’s come into my possession.”

  “Oh, um, of course,” the woman said, a bit flustered either by our presence to begin with or by this request in particular; I couldn’t tell which. “I’ll go retrieve him for you.”

  She disappeared behind a stack of books that I had thought was up against the wall but turned out just to be yet another stack of books. I squinted to see that the shop actually stretched back further than I expected, and there was a whole other room behind the front desk.

  The woman reappeared just a moment later and beckoned for us to follow her.

  “Come, come,” she said, ushering us around the assorted stacks of books. “He’s waiting for you back here.”

  I maneuvered my way around the books, closely followed by Nina and Holm, taking care not to knock any of them over.

  Holm was not so lucky, however, and he sent one of the stacks tumbling down. I stared in horror at the result of this fumble as my partner stood there, arms outstretched and mouth agape, as if trying to figure out a way to undo what he had just done.

  “I’m… sorry,” he managed, clearly equally horrified with himself. “So, so sorry.”

  “We can pay for that,” I said, giving the woman an apologetic look.

  “Oh, no matter,” she said, waving a hand dismissively in the air to both Holm’s and my relief. “It happens all the time. Several times a day, even!”

  “Oh, um, okay, then,” Holm mumbled, not sure what to do with this information.

  He bent down to start to pick up the mess he’d made, but the woman stopped him, despite the fact that she had her back turned to him. I was reminded of those librarians we talked about as kids as if they had eyes in the back of their heads.

  “Oh, don’t bother,” she said lazily. “There’s so many of them. It won’t even make a difference.”

  “Right, sorry, again,” Holm called out to her, but she seemed unbothered by the whole affair. Nina stifled a laugh.

  Eventually, we reached a small office with windows for walls in the very back of the shop, which did indeed stretch on far longer than I would’ve thought at first glance. There was a tiny old man hunched over an old desk inside, surrounded by what seemed to me like even more books than there were in the rest of the shop if that were even possible.

  “Here they are, Percy,” the woman called out to the man in as loud a voice as she seemed able to muster even though she was now standing right next to him. “They say they know your friend, George.”

  “Who?” the little man cried out, and I rea
lized that he must be very hard of hearing.

  “George!” the woman yelled just as loudly.

  “Who?” he asked again, cupping a hand to his ear.

  “George!!!” the woman screamed, right in his ear this time.

  “Oh, yes, George, of course,” he said as if this lambasting of his eardrum caused him no pain whatsoever. “Come in, come in, please.”

  He motioned for us to come into his office, and we did so, though this proved to be an even more difficult task than maneuvering around the books outside it.

  “I think I’ll just wait outside,” Holm muttered after giving it a go and nearly tumbling down a second stack of books.

  “I think I’ll join you,” Nina added, and they both followed the woman back out to the main shop area, leaving me alone with this Percy character.

  “Hello,” I said, stepping gingerly around all the books to reach an empty chair next to Percy’s, though it was full of yet more books. “My name is Ethan. I have this old journal…”

  “I’m sorry, son, I can’t hear a single word you’re saying,” the old man told me apologetically.

  He was pretty much exactly what one would expect to find in a shop like this, an old relic of a man covered in wrinkles and wearing a very old tweed jacket and khaki pants with more than a few wrinkles of their own. He had a kind face, with laughter lines around his eyes. I immediately liked him, and not only because he might help me find the Dragon’s Rogue.

  “Right, I’m sorry,” I apologized in as loud a voice as I could muster without screaming as I cleared off the chair and took a seat in it. “You see, I have this book…”

  “Hand it over,” Percy said, cutting me off and holding out a hand to me.

  I reached into my jacket pocket and held out the journal, though I hesitated at first. I had looked for it and pined after it for so long that it felt wrong to just hand it over to someone I barely knew, even if it was a kind, harmless old man who knew a friend of mine. Even so, I gave it to him.

  “It belonged to the old pirate, Grendel,” I explained. “I’ve looked for it for a long time, but when I finally got my hands on it, I found that large portions are redacted. I was wondering if you could do anything to help with that.”

  “Ah,” Percy breathed, taking a long look at the old leather cover. “Very interesting, indeed. Let me take a look.”

  He perused through the journal for quite some time, even pulling out a magnifying glass and inspecting it more closely at times, which I hadn’t even thought to do.

  After the fourth or fifth time that he did this, I leaned forward to ask a question, so that I was closer to his ear.

  “What does that help you see?” I asked, still in a very loud voice, squinting down at the journal to see if I could make out what he was looking at through the magnifying glass.

  “Ah, it helps me to understand better what material was used to cover up these words and whether it can be undone,” he explained with a cheery tone and disposition.

  “And?” I asked eagerly. “Do you think it can be? Undone, I mean.”

  “I’m not finished with my inspection yet,” he said simply, and I didn’t interrupt him again as he carefully continued to rifle through the book for quite some time.

  Finally, he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, crossing his hands on his belly.

  I blinked at him and then leaned forward again.

  “Um, sir, do you mind if I ask what you’re doing?” I asked.

  “Oh, not at all,” he said without opening his eyes. “I’m merely thinking. Give me a moment, please.”

  He held up a finger to silence me, but not unkindly.

  I let him be, though I had to admit the anticipation was killing me. My eyes lingered on the book, the pages upon pages of Grendel’s scrawl. I wanted so badly to know what it said, to be able to track the movements of the Dragon’s Rogue, and having these answers so close yet so far away was tantalizing at best.

  Finally, after what felt like over an hour but was probably more like twenty minutes, Percy opened his eyes and hunched over the desk again with his magnifying glass, this time examining every inch of the book.

  And I do mean every inch this time. He scoured over the binding, the spine, the corners of the pages. He passed through all of it.

  I bit my lip at first, wanting to ask what he was doing but unsure whether I should or not. Finally, when I was unable to resist the temptation any longer, I spoke up.

  “May I ask what you’re doing?” I asked, a little quieter than I intended because of my hesitance.

  He did not respond. I couldn’t tell whether this was because he couldn’t hear me now that I wasn’t shouting any longer or because he was purposely ignoring me, but either way, I decided to keep my mouth shut after that. When the old man finished, he would tell me. Trying to rush him along wouldn’t make him go any faster and would possibly even have the opposite effect.

  After a long while of this, when he had seemingly gone back over every inch of the book several times over with his magnifying glass, Percy finally set down the magnifying glass, leaned back in his chair, and gave the journal a long, piercing stare. I didn’t dare interrupt him now, either.

  Then he heaved a sigh and went, “Humph.”

  “May I ask what your assessment is?” I asked louder this time like I had when speaking to him before.

  He gave me a puzzled look.

  “How did this book come into your possession?” he asked.

  I told him an abridged version of the story.

  “Hm…” he hummed when I had finished, continuing to glare at the old book.

  “Do you think there’s a way to figure out what it says?” I asked, unable to resist my own impulses any longer. “To undo the redactions?”

  The old man gave me an apologetic look.

  “I’m sorry, son, I don’t think so,” he said. “But, I do have better news for you.”

  “Oh?” I asked, experiencing a whirlwind of emotions in just a few short seconds, losing hope, and then regaining it all at once. “What’s that?”

  “I don’t think this book is what you think it is,” he said simply, furrowing his eyebrows as he glared at it again.

  “You don’t?” I asked, raising my eyebrows in surprise and not quite sure how I felt about this possibility.

  On the one hand, if this wasn’t actually Grendel’s journal, that meant that someone was still hiding it from me, and I was even further from my goal than I had dared hope. On the other hand, that would mean that the real journal might be out there somewhere untampered with, containing a wealth of un-redacted information for me to find.

  But how could this not be Grendel’s journal? It was his handwriting, as much as it changed over time. It matched the other pages that I had, the real ones.

  “No, I don’t,” Percy said finally, shaking his head slightly, his brows still furrowed together to form one long, wispy white line across his forehead.

  “But how could that be?” I asked, shaking my own head in confusion. “It looks exactly like the pages I already have. They match.”

  “It’s a very good copy, that’s for sure,” Percy admitted, nodding slowly and running a hand over his smooth-shaven face. “Whoever did this went to great lengths to convince you, and anyone else with an untrained eye who might take a look at it. It may have fooled even quite a few trained ones. But I’m much better than all of them.”

  He flashed me a mischievous, almost boyish grin, and I couldn’t help but smile back.

  “So, you think that someone made this journal as some kind of decoy?” I asked. “That would explain the strange circumstances of its arrival in Miami somewhat.”

  “Yes, I suppose it would,” Percy agreed with another nod. “But it is a fake. I’m sure of it. The leather isn’t old enough, the binding just a tad too precise for a book of this age. And the writing… it’s a good decoy job, excellent even. But I’m almost certain that it came from a high-end autopen.”

 
; “Autopen?” I repeated, never having heard this term before. “What’s that?”

  “A kind of pen designed to mimic someone’s handwriting,” he explained. “Popular among autograph dealers and those wishing to take advantage of unwitting collectors. But an untrained eye can detect it, even an advanced one such as this.”

  “And the redactions?” I asked, shaking my head. “I still don’t understand it.”

  “Someone clearly wanted you to think you had the real journal, but no way of deciphering its contents,” Percy surmised with a small smile. “And they wanted to keep the real thing for themselves, untampered with.”

  “Ah,” I breathed, the pieces coming together in my mind. “I suppose I could see that reasoning. You’re absolutely sure it’s not the real journal?”

  “Certain,” Percy said, his tone final. “A lesser appraiser might tell you differently, but another of my skill would say the same. And there aren’t many of my skills.”

  He flashed me another grin, and I chuckled.

  “I can see that much,” I said, holding out my hand to him. “Well, thank you very much for your time, Percy.”

  “Of course,” he said, shaking my sturdy hand with his frail one. “And thank you for bringing me such an interesting book. Do keep me updated on your progress with it. I wish you luck finding the real thing.”

  “Thank you,” I said again. “And I’ll make sure of it.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Holm and Nina were waiting outside when I left Percy and waved goodbye to the old woman at the front desk.

  “Sorry, it was just too claustrophobic in there,” Holm told me when I reached them. Then, scrunching up his face in distaste, “And musty.”

  “No worries,” I chuckled. “I didn’t want you wreaking havoc on the whole place, anyway. You really are like a bull in a china shop sometimes, Holm.”

  My partner gave me a dirty look, but he laughed anyway.

  “What did you find out?” Nina asked me eagerly. “Anything?”

  I was glad to see that she was almost as interested in my search for the Dragon’s Rogue as I was.