Vieux Carré Voodoo (14 page)

“Mom told me he was out of town,” he said quietly.

“Lucky for him,” I said.

He had the decency to not reply.

We reached my building, and I pulled out my keys. I unlocked
the gate, and he stopped me from going in. I nodded as he pulled out his gun and
headed through the darkness. I watched him check the courtyard, and he motioned
me to come forward. When I reached him, he whispered, “I’ll go up first, you
follow, okay?” I nodded, and he started up the stairs without making a noise.

It was creepy how he could do that.

I followed him. We stopped in front of Millie and Velma’s
door. I took a deep breath and began pounding on it. There was no response, no
sound of movement inside the apartment. I could hear my heart pounding in my
ears. “Go up and see if Levi’s in his apartment,” I hissed at Colin as I fumbled
through my key ring for the key to their apartment.

Colin nodded. “Wait for me before you go in.”

“Okay,” I replied. He started up the stairs, again not
making any sound. I smiled to myself. I wasn’t about to wait for him.

He reached the midpoint landing. Once he was out of sight, I
turned the key in the deadbolt and swung the door open. I reached for the light
switch just inside the door. The hallway lit up, and their big gray tabby,
Scout, began weaving around my legs, howling. He did that when he was
hungry—which meant he hadn’t had his evening meal. “Just a minute, Scout,” I
said. I left the door slightly ajar so Colin could follow me in. “Millie?
Velma?” I called. “Anyone home?”

I heard a muffled sound coming from the living room at the
end of the hall. It sounded—it sounded human. For a moment I thought about
waiting for Colin and his gun, but the sound came again. Hoping I wasn’t walking
into some kind of trap, trying to convince myself that I was being ridiculous,
and sorry I hadn’t taken Mom’s Glock, I crept down the hallway and reached
around the corner to flip on the lights.

“Damn it!” I burst out once the room flooded with light.

Millie and Velma were gagged and tied to dining room chairs.
They were facing me, and both of their heads bowed with relief when they
realized it was me. Their wrists and ankles were duct-taped to the chairs. Velma
started making urgent noises. I hurried over to her and said “sorry” as I
grabbed one end of the duct tape and ripped it off her mouth. She howled.

I turned to Millie, who closed her eyes as I ripped the tape
from her lips.

“I didn’t think you were ever going to come,” Millie
whispered hoarsely.

“I’ll get a knife,” I said, dashing into the kitchen. I
grabbed a steak knife from the knife stand on the counter and ran back into the
living room.

“Get me free,” Velma demanded. “I have got to go to the
bathroom.”

I sawed through the tape on her wrists. Once they were free,
I went to work on her ankles. It seemed to take forever, but finally she was
loose. She stood up as I moved over to Millie and started sawing at her tape.
“My damned legs are asleep,” Velma cursed as she somehow managed to flop her way
over to the wall and, holding on to it, groped her way to the bathroom.

“What happened here?” I asked as I finished freeing Millie’s
arms.

“That damned new tenant!” Millie said, her lips compressed
in a tight line. She shook her head. “Before you get my legs free, would you be
a dear and get me a glass of water?” I nodded. Her voice followed me out of the
room. “It was around three, wasn’t it, Velma? We were reading the
New York
Times,
and I heard you moving around upstairs. I wanted to ask you about
something—I can’t think now what it was—and your door was open, so I walked in,
and that young bastard was going through your desk!” She was trembling with
barely contained anger. “I demanded to know what he was doing in your apartment,
and I picked up the phone to call the police, and that’s when the bastard pulled
the gun on me.” I handed her the glass and she downed it in one gulp. I knelt
down and started working on her ankles. “He marched me down here and tied us
up.”

“If I ever get my hands on that young prick—” Velma growled
from the kitchen. I heard the faucet turn on. She walked back into the living
room carrying two glasses of water. She handed one to Millie and started sipping
from the other one. “I’ll make that little punk sorry he was ever born.” I
suppressed a grin. Velma was a woman of her word. For Levi’s sake, I certainly
hoped he was on his way out of town with a one-way ticket.

“He made me tie up Velma, and then he did it to me,” Millie
went on, taking another sip of water. She stood up, stretched her arms, and
wiggled her legs to get the circulation going again. “I thought for sure the
little prick was going to rob us, but he didn’t. He didn’t do or say anything.”
She shuddered. “All he did was whistle while he was doing it, like it was
something he did every day, you know, like it was no big deal…and then he just
left.”

“We were lucky.” Velma sat down on the couch. “He could have
raped and killed us.” Her voice was grim. “But you’re wrong, Millie. He did take
something—you just didn’t see it.” She pointed to a row of hooks on the wall by
the kitchen door. “He took a set of keys.” She shook her head. “We’re going to
have to have all the goddamned locks changed.”

So he wanted a set of keys to every door in the
building,
I mused. I was only half listening to Velma as she went on a
tirade about what she was going to do to Levi if she ever got her hands on him.
Why? He didn’t want access to this place, he has his own keys for his own
apartment and the gate—the only keys left are the carriage house, the coffee
shop, Millie and Velma’s, and—

My apartment.

But why would he want a key to my apartment? He’d already
been inside.

He wanted to be able to get in and out as he pleased.

I thought back as Velma continued her rant. She was really
letting her imagination run wild, and it was a little disconcerting to know how
dark the vengeful corner of her mind could be. I hadn’t been paying attention
when I got home from either the parade or Tea Dance. I wouldn’t have noticed if
anyone had searched my apartment. But why would he want to search my apartment?

What was he looking for?

It didn’t make sense. He’d taken the keys
before
he’d hired me, before I’d known anything about Moonie. If he was after the Eye
of Kali—and it stood to reason that he was—he had to have known it wasn’t in my
apartment.

Hiring me to look for Moonie had to be a ruse of some sort.
He wanted to find out how much I knew.

But how could he have thought I’d known anything?

“His grandmother wasn’t an old schoolmate of yours, Millie,
by any chance?” I finally interrupted the tirade. Unabated, Velma could have
gone on for hours. I wanted to be sure Colin’s story held up.

“Schoolmate?” Millie looked at me like I’d lost my
mind—which I was beginning to believe myself. “Of course not. I advertised the
apartment on craigslist. He answered the ad, paid the deposit and the first
three months’ rent in cash. Where would you get the idea I went to school with
his mother?”

“That’s what he told me,” I replied. “This afternoon, when
he hired me to find someone for him.”

Velma’s eyes looked past me and narrowed with anger. “What
the hell is
he
doing here?” she hissed.

I looked back over my shoulder as Colin walked into the
room. “No sign of him up there just like you said, Scotty. His clothes and
everything are still there. But I think it’s safe to assume he’s gone.” He
looked around the room. He gestured to Millie and Velma. “He tied them up, I
gather?” He shook his head.

Millie smiled a horrible smile. She walked over to him,
reared back, and slapped him as hard as she could. It was loud, and it had to
hurt.

“That, you miserable son of a bitch, is for breaking Frank
and Scotty’s hearts,” she said grimly.

I tried unsuccessfully not to smile. Millie and Velma didn’t
know the real story of Colin’s departure; we’d kept that within the immediate
family. It was a bit much, frankly, to get into with everyone. The story we’d
given Millie and Velma was he’d reconnected with an ex over Mardi Gras and
decided to go back to him. They’d been furious.

Colin gave her a rueful smile as he touched the red
handprint on the side of his face. “Okay, Millie, I deserved that.”

“You deserve more,” she replied coldly. “Now, what the hell
is going on around here? Obviously, Levi is some sort of criminal. Didn’t you
run a background on him, Velma?”

“Of course I did. Nothing came up.” Velma shook her head.
“He had good credit, references, and no arrests. I knew we shouldn’t have rented
to a stranger.” She slammed her hand down on her leg. “Damn it to hell! I didn’t
call his references. What the hell was I thinking?”

“No sense beating yourself up about it now, dear.” Millie
got up and headed for the bathroom. “It’s a little late for that now. And wait
until I get back—I don’t want to miss anything.” The door shut behind her.

Velma walked into the kitchen and opened a beer, offering me
one and pointedly ignoring Colin. He bore the snubbing with good grace as I took
my beer from her and took a drink. “Seriously, Scotty, why is he here?” she
whispered to me. “Is he back for good?”

I shook my head. “Doubt it. He’s here on a case, and it
involves Levi somehow.”

The toilet flushed, and Millie grabbed herself a beer from
the kitchen before rejoining us in the living room. She plopped down on the
couch. “Now, what the hell is all this about?”

“Doc was killed tonight,” I said gently. Both of their
mouths dropped open. “And it seems his name wasn’t really Benjamin Garrett.”

“It was Larry Moon,” Colin interjected. “Apparently, he
served a tour in Vietnam back in the sixties, and after he came back to the
States he changed his name and moved to New Orleans.”

“Levi hired me to look for Larry Moon,” I went on. “I didn’t
know he and Doc were the same person at the time. Apparently, Doc and his
friends stole”—Colin was gesturing at me frantically from behind them, but I
ignored him—“a sacred jewel from a temple in some country called Pleshiwar. All
of the guys are now dead, all of them killed. Doc’s been hiding here in New
Orleans for almost forty years. And somehow, Levi is involved in this. I think
it’s possible Levi may have been the one who killed Doc.” But even as I said the
words, it didn’t seem right. It didn’t add up. Whoever had killed Marty Gretsch
had tortured him. Doc had been thrown from his balcony. Their homes had been
trashed from one end to the other. If he’d killed them, Millie and Velma were
lucky to be alive.

Once Millie had caught him in my apartment, his cover was
blown. He knew he hadn’t had much time to do whatever it was he needed to do.

He knew he couldn’t stick around much longer…so he came
down to talk to me, give me this story in order to hire me.

But what did he think I knew? What was he looking for in
my apartment?

“But why tie us up?” Velma asked. “We didn’t have anything
to do with any of this.”

“And why hire you, if he knew Doc was this Larry Moon
already?” Millie chimed in.

“I don’t know,” I replied, thinking. Everything had happened
so fast, I really hadn’t had much time to think…

And Colin had been directing my line of thought ever since I
got to Mom’s.

I glanced over at him.
What game is he playing?
I wondered. Aloud, I said, “Well, when you caught him in my apartment,
Millie, his cover was blown.”

“I guess we won’t know the answers until we find him,” Colin
replied.

“I’m sure he’s long gone,” I replied, watching Colin’s face
.
I wasn’t ready to trust him yet, no matter what Mom thought. I was certain
Colin was deliberately clouding the issue.
He
was the one who said Levi
wasn’t related to Marty Gretsch; I only had his word for that. And sure, Levi
had lied about his grandmother’s relationship with Millie, and he’d had to get
them out of the way once Millie caught him in my apartment. He’d tied them up to
buy himself some time—but time to do what? What was he looking for?

And it was very possible Levi and Colin could be working
together.

I only had Colin’s word for it that Levi wasn’t really Levi,
after all.

No, that didn’t make any sense. He wasn’t the real Levi.
He’d invented the connection between Millie and his grandmother to earn my
trust—and with Millie out of the way for a while, the way was clear for him.

But why?

My head was seriously starting to ache. None of this made
any sense.

And I still didn’t know who shot Colin in the arm, and why.

“Do you two want to go to the hospital?” I asked. “or should
we just call the police?”

Millie and Velma exchanged glances. Velma said, “No need for
the hospital, or for the police.”

I just stared at them. “Okay, why not?”

Velma yawned. “I have to be in court at nine in the morning.
If we call the police, I won’t get any sleep. And what will we tell them?” She
shook her head. “No, we can deal with it in the morning. I’m exhausted.” She
frowned. “I’m a little worried about the key situation.”

“I’ll stand guard,” Colin volunteered.

She gave him a sour look. “I feel better already.”

He flushed, but didn’t say anything. I kissed them both on
the cheek, told them to call me if they needed anything, and hustled Colin out
the door. I waited until I heard their deadbolt slide into place before heading
upstairs to my apartment.

“Ah, what memories I have of this place,” Colin said,
plopping down on my sofa.

“Don’t get comfortable,” I said, checking the answering
machine. Nothing. Angela hadn’t called back. “You’re supposed to be standing
guard, remember?”