Bayou Pirates Page 21

  “Apparently, it’s a fake,” I said, and then told them everything that Percy had related to me about the book.

  “Wow, I don’t know how to feel about that,” Holm said when I finished with my retelling, running a hand through his hair and raising his eyebrows. “On the one hand, you thought you had the book, and now you don’t, and on the other, you thought it was destroyed, and now it might not be.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” I said, a little bitterly. “It’s hard not to think of this as going back to square one, but then again, now at least I know for sure that there’s something fishy going on with that museum in Virginia beyond them just being concerned about protecting historical documents.”

  “Yes, well, maybe you should head up that way after we get done with this case,” Holm said. “Give them a piece of your mind.”

  “I don’t know if I want to play all my cards just yet,” I chuckled. “But yes, once I’m able to take some more time off, I think it might be high time that I paid them a visit up there, one way or another.”

  “Should we head to the voodoo shop then?” Nina asked. “See about finishing this case off for you?”

  “That would be nice,” I agreed with a nod. “We should pose as customers, maybe? Guys looking to buy this new drug? What do you think?”

  “That could work,” Nina said, nodding. “If what that guy told us is true, Ice and Bruise were going to send me over here to start my dealing career for this new drug. And word probably hasn’t spread all that far yet about me being undercover. It’s only been a couple of hours, and everyone who was there is either dead or in the hospital.”

  “Right,” I said excitedly, latching on to this idea and nodding to show that I followed her meaning. “You could pose as yourself undercover, ready to become a dealer, and we could pose as your first clients.”

  “That could go badly,” Holm forewarned, his tone dark. “We don’t know if she’s supposed to have some kind of password to get in, and we also don’t know if clients ever go to the voodoo shop.”

  “We will have to improvise,” Nina agreed. “But it’s worth a shot. Do you guys have backstories?”

  Holm and I exchanged a look. The last time we’d pretended to be someone we weren’t, we ended up nearly drowning in the middle of the ocean after jumping off an exploding ship. We’d have to count on it going at least slightly better this time around.

  “We’re businessmen that are in from Miami,” I said, deciding as I said the words that it was easier to keep our story closer to the truth than we had last time when we’d impersonated Daryl Williams and Clifton Beck. “Looking for a good time.”

  “We can be high-powered business executives,” Holm added. “Always looking to up our game, try something riskier and more dangerous.”

  “Sounds convincing enough,” Nina said, nodding slowly. “We’ll just have to play the rest of it by ear.”

  Holm and I both nodded.

  “Alright,” I said. “Let’s head down there, then.”

  “Sounds good. I think I know where it is,” Nina said, beckoning for us to follow her as she headed west down the sidewalk.

  Holm and I followed Nina back through the back alley where the bookbinding shop was tucked away, and out to the main area of Bourbon Street, which was bustling with tourists and street performers.

  I watched in awe as a man juggled bowling pins that were on fire for a gaggle of tourists, many of them children. New Orleans really was a special place.

  We walked all through Bourbon Street until we came upon another back alley, tucked far away from all the main tourist attractions.

  It was a beautiful place, too, in its own way, full of dive bars and other businesses that I imagined were popular spots for locals. The usually brightly colored buildings were a bit dimmer here, but still full of character and beautiful French architecture, full of twists and turns and adornments just like all the others. The apartments here above the businesses looked a bit dingier, but I still wouldn’t mind living there. I wouldn’t mind living anywhere in New Orleans, to be honest. Except maybe that broken-down place where we found Barrett’s confidential informant.

  Finally, we arrived at yet another dingy old dive bar that appeared to be closed. Nina stopped in her tracks and stared at the building, her hands on her hips. I gave her a questioning look.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked, looking around at the nearby buildings. “I don’t see anything that looks like a voodoo shop.”

  Sure enough, there was another dive bar, something that looked like a jazz venue, a beaten-down old cafe of some kind, a barbershop, and a smoke shop. Nothing voodoo anywhere in sight.

  “I don’t know,” Nina said slowly, biting her lower lip. “I’m sure it’s supposed to be here, but I don’t see it anywhere, either.”

  Holm and I glanced around some more with her until I came across a rickety old black metal staircase that seemed to lead to an area down below a few of the shops on the basement level.

  “Hey, come check this out,” I said, waving Holm and Nina over to me. “Maybe it’s down this way.”

  Both of them rushed over to me and followed me down the staircase which rocked so much that I thought it might break with each consecutive step I took. I held on to both railings on either side of me to steady myself and looked back to see that Holm and Nina were doing the same.

  As we descended the staircase, the world grew darker and darker even though we weren’t very far underground. I could still see the edges of the bottom of the shops above us even when we reached the bottom of the staircase.

  At the bottom, there was a narrow pathway that led to a door beneath the barbershop. I looked back at Holm and Nina and beckoned for them to continue to follow me, and Nina did so, but Holm hesitated, holding back near the stairwell.

  “Are you sure about this?” he hissed in a low voice at us, keeping below a whisper.

  “No, but what else are we going to do?” I asked him, also in a low whisper.

  This answer seemed to satisfy him, and he rushed forward to join Nina and me.

  When I reached the door, I immediately knew that we were in the right place. The words “Madame Rosaline’s Voodoo Shop” adorned the front in curly gold writing, and voodoo dolls and other assorted knick-knacks hung in the window.

  I exchanged a look with Nina and nodded to her, ushering her forward in front of me. As the supposed dealer of the group, she should go in first, though I kept my hand steadily at my hip as I followed close behind her, just in case we ran into any trouble.

  At first, I worried that the door was locked, as Nina couldn’t get it open at first. But after a few moments of trying, she managed to push it open, proving that it was just jammed. Sure enough, I noticed a thin line of rust along the side as I passed through the doorway.

  A high, almost eerie sounding bell chimed as we entered the shop. I immediately thought back to the voodoo shop that Holm and I had patronized back in Haiti, and while the appearance was quite different, the strange, almost ethereal atmosphere was the same, as were many of the items up for sale.

  Whereas that shop had been cluttered, packed to the brim with knick-knacks and other touristy items, this one was different. The items for sale were more scattered throughout the shop, which had an open floor plan, and they seemed more organized and less densely packed together.

  Also different was the general aesthetic. The Haitian voodoo shop had just been a small hut with plain white walls and a concrete floor and ceiling, but this one had pitch-black walls, dark velvet carpet, and a high, olive-colored ceiling with an elaborate golden chandelier hanging from it, its sides stretching out to cover almost the entire shop.

  Voodoo dolls, spice and potion jars and bottles, and other items were scattered about, and I could tell that care was placed into how they were arranged. The items all seemed to match the ones next to them in color, tone, and texture.

  At first, the three of us were alone standing in the center of the shop, but it wasn
’t long before a woman appeared from the back to greet us.

  She was tall and thin and wore a long black dress to match her skin tone. She had placed her hair up in an elaborate bun atop her head, with some kind of gold lacy thing holding her hair in place. She looked to be around late-middle age, but I wasn’t quite sure. She had an almost ageless quality about her, and her eyes twinkled when she saw us and lingered on me.

  “Hello,” she said, placing the tips of her long fingers together. Her voice was low and pleasantly silky. “It’s not often that we have tourists in these parts.”

  “More of a local shop?” Holm asked. “Because that’s kind of what we had in mind.”

  “Then you’ve come to the right place,” she said, giving him a smile that almost, but didn’t quite, reach her eyes. They shifted back to me again when she finished answering Holm.

  “I’m not a tourist,” Nina scoffed. “I mean, these two are, but I’m not.”

  “Ah, I should’ve guessed as much,” the woman said, giving Nina a similar smile to the one she’d given Holm. “You look far too jaded to be a tourist.”

  Nina looked like she was still trying to sort out what that was supposed to mean when the woman continued.

  “Welcome to my shop, whoever you are,” she said, her eyes falling on me for a third time and resting there. “I am Madame Rosaline. Let me know if I can be of any… service to you.”

  Her voice faltered before the word ‘service,’ as if she was trying to find the right word. She smiled at me when she said this, and this time it really did reach her eyes. Somehow, that made a chill run up and down my spine, and I was filled with the feeling that I needed to get out of that place. But that wasn’t an option, not yet anyway.

  “I’ve actually just come from the Lafitte bar,” Nina said, examining her short fingernails and trying to appear nonchalant about all this. “I was wondering if you had anything in stock for me to pass on to these clients of mine.”

  Nina nodded between Holm and me. Madame Rosaline’s eyes narrowed suspiciously at her.

  “I’m not entirely sure what you mean,” she said, giving Nina a smaller, more sinister smile this time.

  I was getting the strong sense that Holm had been right, and Nina was supposed to have some kind of code word to tell this woman that she was actually a member of the gang. And the fact that Holm and I were there didn’t seem to be helping matters in the slightest, though Madame Rosaline kept looking at me strangely like she was taken with me or something. I thought that maybe I could use that.

  “I think you do,” Nina said simply, returning Madame Rosaline’s expression with a similar one of her own. “You’ve been expecting me, haven’t you? I was told you would be expecting me.”

  This was a gamble, but it paid off. Madame Rosaline narrowed her eyes again, as if studying Nina very closely, and then she slowly began to nod.

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “I was told to expect a woman who fit your description, however…”

  Her voice trailed off as if she was once again searching for the right words, and Nina took advantage of this and interrupted her, also another gamble. I was really beginning to like this woman. She was my kind of operative.

  “You see, right when I was being given my instructions about coming here, a bunch of these federal agents and police detectives broke in on us,” Nina explained as if this was all a series of common occurrences. “My bosses—Ice and Bruise, you may know them—were both killed.”

  Madame Rosaline seemed taken aback by this, and she flinched visibly, her thin, perfectly styled eyebrows shot upward.

  “Really?” she asked, blinking several times. We’d caught her off guard with this one. “Federal agents?”

  “Yeah, but they still have no clue what’s going on,” Nina said, waving a hand in the air dismissively. “Everyone else who could’ve squealed was killed, and well, I’m here, aren’t I?”

  Nina gave Madame Rosaline another smile, and the woman blinked back at her a few more times before recovering her composure, at which point she resumed her close study of the FBI agent, looking her up and down with a piercing gaze.

  “And how is it that you managed to escape this… unfortunate situation?” she asked, sounding highly skeptical again.

  Her shock had worn off, and her mask of mystique and confidence was back on, though I didn’t forget how it had slipped and logged that information in the back of my mind for later.

  “Oh, you know how it is,” Nina sighed, rolling her eyes. “They always underestimate the girl. I managed to work it to my advantage and slip out of there before anyone noticed I had gone. They were busy checking the bodies to see if anyone survived, so they didn’t notice.”

  Madame Rosaline chuckled at this. Another good move by Nina.

  “I’m beginning to like you,” she said, looking Nina up and down again. “Now, why have you come here when you could’ve gone to speak with your other… colleagues?”

  She said this last word as if it was distasteful, and I got the sense that this woman wasn’t exactly a fan of working with the gang members. The question remained as to why she was doing it, then. I decided to take a chance and ask.

  “Hold on, you don’t sound too thrilled about working with people in her… uh, line of work,” I said, remembering that I wasn’t supposed to be undercover as a gang member myself this time, so I should probably be a little uncomfortable with it, too. “So why do it, then?”

  Madame Rosaline looked me up and down as she had Nina, but with a different, more appraising expression on her face. Yes, I was definitely getting the sense that this woman had a thing for me in some way. It made me a little uncomfortable, considering where we were, but I was also a little pleased with myself, I had to admit.

  “A bold question, my new friend,” she said, furrowing her fine brows together as she thought carefully about how to answer it. “I haven’t worked with them long. You could say that this particular product… piqued my interest.”

  Ah, it all made sense now. I thought back to how the old Haitian witch doctor, Samuel, and his grandson, Junior, spoke almost with reverence about this zombie drug. Though the drug was being used for nefarious purposes by the Haitian cartel and this American gang, it was a religious symbol of sorts for people like Madame Rosaline. The good thing was that this meant she might be persuaded away from helping them if she realized the way they were using it wasn’t as she would.

  “I guess I can respect that,” I said, giving her an approving nod.

  Her gaze lingered on me before she reluctantly turned her attention back to Nina.

  “You still haven’t answered my last question,” she said. “Why have you come here instead of going straight to other members of your… organization?”

  “And risk losing out on this gig when they found out what happened?” Nina scoffed, laughing out loud. “No way.”

  “Fair enough,” Madame Rosaline mused, seeming to think this was a good enough explanation. “And why have you brought these fine gentlemen with you?”

  She waved a hand lazily in Holm’s and my direction. She gave Holm an almost disdainful look like she resented us being here. She still seemed to like me enough, though.

  “They’re good clients of mine,” Nina said with a shrug. “Just came into town and really want to try out something… a little harder than what they’re used to if you catch my drift.”

  She gave the woman a pointed look such that they both knew she wasn’t referring to getting loaded. My stomach churned as I thought back to that poor girl in the hospital.

  “I do,” Madame Rosaline said coolly as if she disapproved, and Holm jumped on this opportunity before I had the chance to, which was probably a good thing considering I wanted her to continue to like me.

  “We’re just looking for a good time, you know?” he said lazily. “We just don’t want to get caught. We heard your product is really good for that. You see, if we got caught doing what we wanna do… well, let’s just say that wouldn’t
go too well for us even in the best of circumstances.”

  He waggled his eyebrows at the woman, and she scoffed audibly before physically turning away from him. This was the desired effect, and Nina caught on to what we were trying to do.

  “Look, we may not like it, but it’s the business,” she said with another shrug. “Take it or leave it.”

  Madame Rosaline scowled again, and her eyes darted distastefully between Holm and Nina. Here was my chance to jump on to why she was really doing this and see if she could lead us somewhere a little more interesting than just a run-of-the-mill drug bust.

  “If you hate this so much, may I ask why you’re hanging on?” I asked, sliding across the velvet carpet to be a little closer to her, but not too close. “I mean, I get the… uh, cultural connection. But there has to be something beyond that. What’s in it for you?”

  “You mean other than money?” she drawled, taking a step closer to me, as well.

  “Money?” I repeated, raising my eyebrows and looking around the extravagant shop. “Doesn’t look like you need much of that to me.”

  She definitely liked that, letting out a long, velvety laugh that I had to admit was pretty pleasing.

  “True enough,” she admitted, flashing me a smile with teeth this time. They were bright white and perfectly straight, predictably.

  “So, my question still stands,” I said, not moving my feet but still leaning in closer to her until we were mere inches apart. “What’s in it for you, if you don’t need more money and you don’t like who you’re getting involved with. It doesn’t look to me like you’re hurting for any power, either, I’ll add.”

  “Oh?” she asked, raising her eyebrows and wiggling them a bit at me. “What makes you say that?”

  “Just look around,” I laughed, spreading my arms wide to encapsulate the whole shop. “This place is hidden away from everything. It’s not exactly a tourist magnet, but here you are still with a shop full of horrors and decor to rival a Tiffany’s.” I gestured up at the chandelier. “Plus, you just have the aura of a powerful woman.”