Cajun Gothic (Blood Haven) (9 page)

Mercifully, Ivan had accorded me enough privacy to
dress and gather my wits. I was going to make my escape through the rear gate
but the mountain beckoned from the screen door. Too tapped out to consider
other options, I nodded and followed him inside to the small living area where
I’d first fallen in lust with my Ukrainian angel.

He handed me a large brown envelop. Glancing through
I saw some photos and sheets of paper with careful block handwriting. I
wondered who was hiring me and for what. Ivan didn’t seem predisposed to fill
me in on pertinent details.

If I thought Sasha would make an appearance, I was
wrong... and vaguely relieved. At some level I was embarrassed and ashamed, not
so much for her pleasuring me out in the open, with Ivan the mountain in
attendance, but more for how she’d kick started a memory dump. One set I’d
worked very hard to bury, the other one something I’d been digging for over the
last sixteen years. That I couldn’t separate one from the other might be fodder
for a shrink. When I got back from New Orleans, I had to seriously consider
calling Dr. Farnesworth for a consult.

If I got back.

I replayed the bizarre conversation in my head…

“Yer gonna shoot yer dick off.”

I was actually surprised he seemed concerned about
that.

He elucidated, “Me, I like a Glock.”

Familiar with the argument about decocking versus
long trigger pull, I simply shrugged. Chalk it up to taste.

What Sasha wanted was my undivided attention and I
had to admit, it was unconventional and very, very effective. A Swiss army
knife on the other hand might have been a complete turnoff.

As insane as it seemed, I’d be willing to take that
for a test drive, assuming I ever got down and naked with her again. My ego was
more than willing to pretend the blow job had been above and beyond just
services rendered.

But like Ivan had said… it was a retainer and I held
the to-do list in my hot little hands.

“In a nutshell, exactly what am I looking at here?”
I waved the envelope.

A board creaked upstairs. Then the house settled.
Ivan got twitchy all of a sudden, looking left and right, then leaned forward,
his voice a bass rumble, pitched for my ears only.

“We hear shit, me and her. She don’t do the clubs…
you gotta understand that. But some of the others do.”

“Svetlana and Nairi.”

“Yeah, coupla others. Not from here.”

I assumed that meant they were safely ensconced in
the 7
^th
Street bordello.

“So what’s that got to do with anything?”

He stared at me like I was dim. And here I’d been
thinking about asking him to draw pictures because text-wise he was coming up
short in the information department.

“They got noticed.”

Pulling teeth had to be easier. “By who?”
Dammit
all to hell, get to the effing point.

“Manny, he knows this guy in the Council. They asked
for our girls so he did a delivery, door-to-door, special services kind of
shit.”

“Go on.” I reached for the notebook. Ivan didn’t
object.

“It got real regular. Apparently one of the
muckety-mucks took a fancy to Svetlana and made an offer.”

“What kind of offer?” My spidey-sense went on full
alert. I wasn’t aware that the Council of Gotham ran any side businesses, other
than the clubs and keeping tabs on the loonies. Even in subcultures flaunting
all of society’s rules, image was still everything.

“Ya gotta understand. The Council’s making big bucks
off tourists, but that ain’t all there is.”

“So educate me.”

“It ain’t cheap to use their special services, and
even the top doms like to indulge every now and then.”

“I know they handle the festivals and co-ordinate
events, skimming off every venue. You’re saying there’s more?”

“That’s exactly what I saying.”

“Forgive me, but I’m still drawing a blank here.
What’s that got to do with Svetlana and Nairi getting…” I choked on the words
and picked a spot over his left shoulder, praying for enlightenment.

“At first, Manny thought he’d been dealing with just
the Council, ya know?” I nodded encouragingly. “But the one who did Svetlana?
There was something off, like he was weird. Nobody seemed to know much about
him, yet he was the one pulling the strings, doing deals. Like I said, you hear
stuff if you pay attention.”

“So what happened?”

“Sasha and me don’t know exactly what they offered
Manny, but he said no. He even took a meet with some of his people and they
backed him up.” A frown crossed his face. “A couple days later she turned up
dead.”

That was interesting and exactly what I suspected.
This whole case was looking like whores being drained was just a sideshow. A
message. The fly in the ointment was that Svetlana had been victim number
three. So who else was involved?

I was looking too low on the food chain, not seeing
the forest for the trees.

Ivan worried at a hangnail for a while. I jotted a
few things down, then asked, “You think there’s something going on in the
Council?”

I was thinking power-play, maybe the BDSM or Goth’s
were looking to acquire ready-made assets. The Mafia families had to make do
with muscle to keep the peace. It might be a whole new ballgame when it came to
manipulating hidden desires and obsessions, something the subcultures catered
to quite successfully.

Ivan waited until I looked up and said, “I don’t
know how to explain it. The girls seen some stuff… well, nobody believed them.”

“Except for you and Sasha.” He nodded yes. Thinking
out loud I said, “They were numbers three and five, the first two happened two,
three weeks before Svetlana. Same deal. Drained dry. I need to know who their
pimp is…”

“His name’s Jorge. He runs the Haitian connection.
His girls are sluts; they ain’t clean.” The man shifted in the seat, clearly
debating how much more to share. Finally he said, “Jorge’s been looking to
expand. We heard he was taking talks with the Council to see to moving a Haven
into his jurisdiction.”

“And…”

“Well, lemme just say his words weren’t falling on
deaf ears.”

Curious about the timeline, I asked, “So when did
all this start?”

“After the Holidays. We heard there were new players
in town, but they didn’t seem to have anything to do with us. But in April was
when things got hot.”

Shit. My suspicion about whoever’d been offing the
hookers in the Big Easy moving north might be right on the money, just faster
than I’d figured. If this was some organizational infighting, I was going to be
out of my depth in no time flat. I might have to be a good citizen and share
with O’Hearn because as far as backup plans went... it was me, myself and I.

I still wasn’t clear on how Sasha rolled with all
this. I took a chance and asked outright.

“You brought it to our door. After your visit on
Saturday, Sasha picked up a stalker. And I got a feeling the house is being
watched. The girls, they talked to her. She knows what they know.”

Which apparently wasn’t much and seemed all out of
proportion to any damage she could do.

I muttered, “She’s a whore for fuck’s sake, who’s
gonna listen to
her
?”

Ivan moved fast, faster than anyone built like him
should. The switchblade and his foul breath vied for pride of place on my neck.
I mumbled an apology but knew I’d racked up some negative cred that would be
tough to work off.

When the testosterone ebbed enough he could back off
and give me some breathing space, I asked, “What exactly do you expect me to do
here?”

“Make it right. Either you stop what’s going down,
or you find somebody who will.”

“And what do I get in return? Free blow jobs? Pity
fucks?”

Flipping the switchblade closed, he grinned down at
me.

“You get to live.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Power of Three

T
he girl behind the counter gave
me a flirty glance but looked away quickly when the bell above the door chinked
dully. That I sat with my back to the door was a good indication of my
befuddled state of mind. It wasn’t something I’d do in normal circumstances.

Clarity slid into the booth opposite me.

She was average height, maybe five-six, ten, fifteen
pounds over ideal. Business efficient, she wore a blue, pin-striped suit with a
pencil skirt, custom-fit to hide the extra pounds, not that the weight
detracted from her looks, not at all.

I’d put her mid-thirties at first glance. Reddish
blonde, done up in a tight bun that looked positively painful. She removed
wire-framed glasses, leveled clear blue eyes on my face and slid a business
card across the plastic tablecloth.

Fingering the card, I stared back, waiting.

She let me stew for longer than was comfortable,
then decided opening negotiations might be prudent.

“Mr. Shephard, I represent Dark Haven, Inc.” She
didn’t give her name. I didn’t ask. “My employer has a proposal that might be
of interest.”

I shrugged. My flight wasn’t until the next
afternoon, leaving me plenty of time to kill. That didn’t mean that she’d
piqued my curiosity.

“You’re familiar with my employer…”

“Yes.” I left it curt and leaned back against the
stiff cushion.

“Well, then, I have a car waiting.”

“Let it wait.” She arched a thin eyebrow, annoyed,
but I continued, ignoring her. “I have questions.”

“Of course, and I am here to answer as many as I can
to allay your concerns.”

“Oh, I really doubt that.”

I needed some idea of how many ‘interested parties’
were playing in my sandbox today. I had two in the bag. The legal beagle
sitting across from me made it potentially three. But were there more?

Hoping she’d clear the air on one question nagging
both me and Ivan, I said, “So, answer me this… have you had me followed?”

Like a shutter clicking on a camera lens, there was
that instantaneous flicker of concern. Not for being caught out. No, this was
news to her, and the woman clearly didn’t take kindly to being surprised.

Tight-lipped she said, “Not to my knowledge, Mr.
Shepherd.”

I took that as an unequivocal ‘no’ because nothing
but nothing was getting by her. I had ten solid years of experience to back up
that particular hunch.

I threw some bills on the table and slid out of the
booth, offering an arm, but the woman ignored me and smoothly moved toward the
door. The ride was a black Lincoln Town Car. A bodyguard doubling as chauffeur held
the door. She got in first and adjusted the skirt to sit primly about her
thighs. I wasn’t a fan of nylons but the sheers she had on encased very shapely
legs.

That reminded me of Sasha, coming down the stairs
the first time I’d seen her. And then I thought about what she’d done to me in
the hot sun. Perspiration beaded on my forehead as I struggled to control my
body’s reaction to that memory.

The woman looked at me with curiosity. As well she
should. Even I knew I was a mess. And going to a meet with the head of Dark
Haven enterprises required a cool head, not one out in lala land.

I eased in next to her, using my right hand to keep
my sport coat in place. They both had to know I was armed, the bulge was a dead
giveaway. Ivan’s concern for my gonads still made me smile.

The driver slid behind the wheel and pulled
carefully into light traffic. We hit the usual stop and go on the Shore
Parkway. I must have dozed off because the next thing I saw was the FDR parking
lot ahead of us. The woman glanced irritably at her watch and tapped a
manicured nail on the silk skirt.

“Tomas, when you can…” The driver nodded and angled
us onto a ramp that dumped us into the East Village. We bulleted past Mom and Pop
storefronts, reconstituted tenements and new high-end condos.

Expecting to pull into a parking garage for one of
the office buildings, or even one of the condos, I was surprised when we
double-parked outside a trendy restaurant. Tomas left the car idling and
assisted the woman, leaving me to my own devices.

She had a quiet word with the driver while I
surveyed the area. East Village was still in the process of switching from its
immigrant pauper European and Latino roots to the more upscale image that tried
hard to recapture the old bohemian artsy-fartsy crowd ambiance. Thompkins
Square Park was two blocks over. I’d been working there on security for a drag
fest a few years back, an interesting experience but one that almost landed me
in hot water. O’Hearn was the only one who knew about that particular
peccadillo. He still ribbed me about it.