Vieux Carré Voodoo (9 page)

Her eyes narrowed as she flipped open her phone and called
for backup. She pulled her gun and slipped the safety off. “He’s on the top
floor?”

I nodded.

“Stay here.” Her heels made no noise as she moved down the
passageway. “When the squad car gets here, let them know I went in.”

I stood there in the doorway, my armpits clammy with cold
sweat. A couple of cars drove past heading uptown. I could hear music from a
live band playing at Checkpoint Charlie’s on the other side of Esplanade. Some
people were hanging out in front of Charlie’s, drinks in hands, talking and
laughing loudly. Further up Decatur Street, I could see street kids camped out
in front of some of the closed shops, spare changing people going from bar to
bar. The night sky was clear of clouds, stars twinkling in a sea of deep blue
velvet. The wind still felt cold and damp. I shivered and rubbed my arms.

I hoped Levi was okay. I said a quick prayer for him.

It seemed like I waited forever, but only a few minutes
passed before she finally came back. She was talking into her cell phone as she
waved me to come down the passage and join her in the dark courtyard. She was
standing inside a yellow cone of light being cast from one of the fixtures on
the back staircase—but it was much darker back there than usual. Millie and
Velma liked to keep all the courtyard lights on all night.

My legs were wobbly. I let the gate slam shut behind me. I
put my hands against the walls on either side of the passageway to help me keep
my balance. When I reached Venus, she was putting her gun back into its holster.

“Is he—” I asked, afraid to hear her answer.

“He’s not there,” she said, giving me a look I didn’t like.
“His door is wide open, but there’s no sign of him.” She folded her arms, her
face carved from stone. “Why don’t you start at the beginning? And don’t leave
anything out.”

THE MOON

Unforeseen perils

Venus finally left just before midnight.

Frankly, I was beginning to think she would never leave.
She’s a good cop, which means she is very thorough. She’d made me go over my
encounter with Levi so many times I’d begun to feel like I was reciting from a
script. She’d taken lots of notes, her face impassive. Any time I started
speculating, she’d cut me off with a curt “Stick to the facts, Scotty.” Properly
humbled, I’d shut up and wait for her next question. Finally, she closed her
notepad and put it into her jacket pocket.

“So, what do we do now?” I asked.

She gave me a look that made me squirm a bit. “We?” she
replied, a faint smile playing at the corner of her mouth. “
We
aren’t
going to do anything. You, on the other hand, are going to play nice with the
police for once.”

“I’ve always played nice with the police,” I objected. “Name
one time I didn’t cooperate.”

Her smile broadened. “I don’t have all night.” She stood up
and stretched. “All right. This is what I’m going to do. I’ll get in touch with
the police up in Ohio and see what I can find out about this Marty Gretsch’s
murder, okay? There may be a connection, there may not be.” I started to protest
but she held her hand up for silence. “It’s a starting place, at any rate. But
from all indications, Garrett
wasn’t
tortured before he went off the
balcony. And you only have this Levi’s word about this murder in Ohio.” Her
forehead wrinkled. “I would like to talk to him.”

“Are you going to put out an APB?”

Her smile faded a bit. “Don’t use police lingo, Scotty.” She
sighed. “I really can’t do a whole lot until he’s been missing for twenty-four
hours. For all we know, he might be out on Bourbon Street and just left his door
unlocked.”

“But—”

She held up her hand again. “If he shows up, call me. I
don’t care what time it is, you call me. Got it?”

I nodded.

She glanced at her watch. “All right, I’m heading back to
the station.”

I walked her out and shut the gate behind her.

I took a deep breath and started climbing the back stairs. I
thought about knocking on Millie and Velma’s door, but it was late. They hadn’t
responded earlier when we’d knocked, but they might have come back home while
Venus was grilling me. They wouldn’t be happy to be awakened—they never were—and
I was too tired to deal with a pair of angry lesbians.

All I wanted to do was take a long, hot shower and go to
bed.
You need to call your mother and tell her about Doc,
I lectured
myself.

I didn’t want to make the call.

But when I got to my own door, I hesitated. I looked up the
stairs. Venus was a good cop, which meant she never bent the rules. She had
probably just gone up there, made sure he wasn’t there, and that was it. Bound
by rules of admissible evidence, she wouldn’t have searched the place. My word
was not enough probable cause for her to search the place, and if there was no
“in plain sight” evidence that Levi had been taken against his will, her hands
were tied.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t there for someone with a little
less scruples to find.

I went into my apartment and scrounged around in my kitchen
junk drawer. Millie and Velma had given me keys to every door in the building,
in case of an “emergency.” They’d never told me exactly what qualified as an
emergency, but I had never once abused their trust by using my keys to go
anywhere I wasn’t supposed to—like their apartment or the carriage house on the
back side of the courtyard where they stored things. They might not like the
idea of me going into Levi’s apartment without his permission, but I felt I
could make a pretty strong argument to justify my quasi-legal entry. But where
were the damned keys? The junk drawer was a mess. Frank and I both just threw
things in there that didn’t have a specific home elsewhere. Whenever I had to
try to find something in there, I always swore I would clean it out and organize
it—and promptly forgot the vow once I found what I was looking for. I started
digging through the mess—cigarette lighters, key rings, stamps, blank envelopes,
old clogged pipes, paper clips—and began to fume with irritation.
Tomorrow I
am cleaning out this stupid thing,
I swore just as I spotted the Saints key
ring. With a smile of triumph, I grabbed it and slammed the drawer shut.

Millie was a little anal, so each key had a label taped to
it.

Feeling enormously proud of myself, I made sure the key
marked APT 4 was on the ring before heading out the door.

It was raining again, and it had gotten even colder. I
shivered and started up the stairs to the fourth floor.

I hadn’t been up there since I helped Frank move down into
my apartment. Back in the days when there’d been the three of us, he and the
Liar had shared the fourth-floor apartment. We spent most of our time down in my
apartment, but once the Liar was gone, it just didn’t make sense to keep both
apartments. We converted my spare bedroom into a room for Frank to keep his
clothes and things in, and left the guest bed there. I’d never liked going up to
the fourth floor much, frankly. Even though my apartment was pretty high up,
going up to the fourth always gave me a touch of vertigo. The first three floors
all had sixteen-foot ceilings, so the top floor was at least fifty feet up in
the air. The wind always seemed more blustery and stronger the closer you got up
there, and it didn’t take a lot of imagination to see the wind blowing me right
off the stairs and falling to my death in the courtyard.

An overactive imagination can be a curse sometimes.

Finally, I got to the top landing. The bright yellow light
outside the door lit up the landing pretty well. It was also the smallest
landing, and even though the building had been rebuilt after the fire four years
ago, it had a slight downward tilt from the building settling. Right by the
railing overlooking the courtyard was a small metal ladder attached to the wall
by screws that led up to the trap door that opened onto the roof. Other than
roofers, no one ever went up there.

There wasn’t enough money in the world to make me climb that
ladder. For one thing, you had to hold on with one hand while opening the trap
door, and the ladder was too close to the edge for me. One slip and next
stop—the courtyard.

I tried the doorknob but it didn’t open. Venus must have
locked the door behind her when she’d left. I slipped the key into the lock and
smiled when I heard the deadbolt slide back. I opened the door and flipped the
light switch.

All three apartments had the exact same floor plan. The
front door opened into a hallway. The two bedrooms were to the left, with a
bathroom located in between them. On the right wall, just inside the outside
door, was a door to a massive closet. The kitchen was the next door on the
right, and the hallway ended in a one huge room sectioned off into a living room
and a dining area. On the far wall of the lower-floor apartments were three sets
of French doors that opened out into the balconies. The fourth-floor apartment
didn’t have a balcony, so there were only windows on that wall.

Levi’s hallway was bare. No tables, nothing on the walls,
and no rugs. I opened the closet door and flicked on the switch. It was empty,
not even empty boxes from when he’d moved in. The floor was dusty, and cobwebs
hung in the corners near the ceiling. I turned the light off and crossed the
hall to the first bedroom.

It, too, was empty. No furniture, nothing. I closed the door
and headed into the bathroom.

The bathroom was spotless—which I wasn’t expecting. Given
Levi’s age and sexual preference, I was expecting a bathroom that bordered on
being a public health hazard. But the sink and the counter gleamed in the light.
The toilet was scrubbed clean. There were no telltale spots of toothpaste on the
mirror like there were on mine. The only thing on the counter was a small, clean
glass. I opened the medicine cabinet. On the bottom shelf were his razor and
shaving cream. The second shelf held his toothbrush and a rolled-up tube of
toothpaste. The top shelf held a bottle of face wash designed to fight acne. I
smiled a little—I’d used that brand when I was in high school.

I closed the door and looked at the shower. The bathtub was
completely clean. There were no hairs or soap build-up in the drain. A huge
purple bath towel was drying on the rack for the shower curtain. The floor mat
next to the tub matched the towel. Underneath the sink I found more rolled-up
purple towels, and a stash of toilet paper, along with a toilet brush and other
cleaning supplies inside a blue plastic bucket.

I walked into the kitchen. The refrigerator was empty other
than a half-empty gallon jug of milk, a six-pack of Diet Dr Pepper, and some
sandwich meat in plastic containers. There was nothing in the freezer. A quick
glance through the kitchen cabinets revealed some inexpensive dishes and
glasses, a box of Honey Nut Cheerios, and an unopened loaf of bread. The rest of
the cabinets were empty, as were the drawers, except for one filled with local
take-out menus and some cheap flatware.

The bedroom he used, on the other hand, was a little
sloppier. The shorts and T-shirt he’d been wearing when he’d come down to my
apartment were thrown into a corner on top of some other dirty clothing. The
single bed was unmade. A can of Diet Dr Pepper sat on the nightstand, along with
an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts and ashes. A straight porn magazine
was open to a quite nauseating picture of a large-breasted bleached blonde
servicing two well-endowed, tattooed men who looked a little malnourished. All
that was in the nightstand drawer was an opened box of condoms.

Definitely straight,
I thought as I tore my eyes
away from the lurid magazine.

The walk-in closet was next. As I opened the door and
reached for the light switch, it crossed my mind that if Levi had just gone
bar-hopping I was seriously invading his privacy, and it would probably be best
if I got out of there—

The closet flooded with light, and I whistled to myself.

The closet was a walk-in, just like the ones in my bedrooms.
At eye level was a shelf that ran along one wall, across the back, and back up
the other side. To my left hung the shirts I was accustomed to seeing Levi in:
sweatshirts and sports team jerseys. Dirty, worn-out running shoes were placed
neatly on the shelf above. There was a pile of cheap-looking cotton boxer shorts
neatly folded next to the shoes, and beyond that were the unflattering shorts he
usually wore. On that side of the closet, everything was as it should have been.

But the right side was a completely different story. I
pulled down a pair of expensive-looking black leather shoes and checked the
inside sole for the brand name. I whistled. Storm wore that brand, and they cost
a minimum of $200 a pair. There was a black wool suit with a Versace label,
Dolce and Gabbana slacks, shirts from Hilfiger. Next to the designer shoes on
the upper shelf were two stacks of brief-style underwear, all with designer
labels.

I remembered him saying to me,
I’ve got money.

I put the underwear back on the shelf. Apparently, he hadn’t
been kidding.

I closed the closet door and walked out into the living
room, thinking.

He’d said his grandfather had a farm, and he was a college
student. That had, to me, implied poverty.

I heard my mother sneer in my head,
Classist. Just
because his grandfather was a farmer didn’t mean they were poor.

But it wasn’t just the farming thing,
I answered
her back in my head. The way he dressed—and from the closet, it looked like he
deliberately chose to dress that way to create the impression of a poor college
student. Why, for example, would a college student need all those expensive
dress clothes, or shoes that cost over two hundred dollars a pair?