After leaving Chuck’s place, Monique was in need of a rest stop and she pulled off the road at a little Five and Dime in search of a ladies room. The rest room was around the back of the building in a separate, smaller and somewhat private structure, so the shop clerk had informed her and handed her a key connected to an awkward, ring shaped block of wood.
“Primitive,” Monique said, tipping the young man a smile and not waiting for a response. She turned to walk out the door and back into the blistering heat of the sun- New Orleans style. She couldn’t stop thinking about Chuckles and how worried she was about the dark news the two love mates had revealed to her. She was frightened, scared for Chuck and scared for herself.
She made it to the lavatory and was just inserting the key into the door when an arm gripped around her waist. Cold steel pressing against the lower half of her skull, and a man whispered in her ear. “You say one word; you even move and I’m going to decorate that wall with your brains.” Monique’s heart froze, and she immediately drew the conclusion that there was nothing deceptive in the man’s voice.
“Who are you,” Monique asked.
“Where is he? And you got about two seconds. Where is he?”
“Chuck’s not—”
“No Francesco. Come ere,” he said almost snarling, grabbing her by the hair and leading her around to the back of the structure. He shoved her face into the block wall. “Where?”
“I don’t know where he is, no one knows for sure,” Monique said.
“Me and your’s gonna take a little ride, I’m gonna put this gun away, you’d do well to remember I've still got hold of your neck. We’re going to walk right out there to that little black Focus, you’re getting in and we’re going for a drive.”
She was compliant, knowing she was capable of defending herself against the man, but afraid to underestimate him. The tightening grip on the back of her neck was an all too welcoming reminder. They walked towards the car and passed by pedestrian folks, looking like entangled lovers locked in the throes of an abusive spat.
Something had gone terribly wrong with the Queen, and her form was unlike anything Sam and Delia had ever seen. She strode the dungeon with stiffness of back, a pride that both knew and was ingenuous of all things lucid and sane. Her stature a staggering eight feet, a good five feet of coarse black hair hung down in crisscrossed patterns of braid that flowed along her backside. A single horn protruded from the top portion of her spine and curved upward.
This one doesn't look human at all, Sam thought. He fought to keep up his composure and the impression that he and his sweet Delia were still drugged. He wasn't actually sure about her, Sam couldn’t remember a thing since leaving the presence of La Fleur and the magic-woman he’d referred to as the Pinkster. He signaled by giving her little half winks whenever the opportunity arose, hoping that she would understand, trying to let her know that he had a plan and that getting chewed up by this beast of a woman wasn’t a part of it.
“I am! I . . . am!” The queen murmured speech that was mostly incoherent, striding across the room from wall to wall in the dark, nondescript chamber. The only object in the room that Sam could see was a small wooden altar about fifteen paces from where he and Delia lay cuddled together in a corner. The Queen eventually stopped her pacing and knelt down before the vexatious platform. For a short time she seemed only to be praying, but then the Queen turned her head and steadied her eyes upon Sam and Delia. Her lips spread apart revealing not teeth, but lumps of rotting gum. Saliva dripping from her abysmal mouth, the queen hissed “I know. Mort le estat damin. I know, I am.” Suddenly, the Queen rose up into the air, screaming, hissing, doing both at the same time and calling to a god that most knew not. She called to the dead, she called to the Prince of the dark, the dark that was rising up to once again claim this desperate little water logged town that his kind had nearly succeeded in abolishing in a time afore. She called to death, to disease, uttering non sense as she sank slowly back down towards the altar. “Com le au din eh min . . .”
Then, for the moment things got quiet again. Sam and Delia were clutching each other, shaking and crying, writhing in the darkest fear they had ever known. The only other sound they could hear was the dripping of water, falling one steady drop at a time some where close in the chamber. There was no ceiling that they could see, no entrance from whence they surely must have been led. Sam noticed a bat soaring around above in a spiral. How’d we get here, Sam thought, Just how in hell did we . . .
The Queen turned, once again setting her eyes (bright florid and mucus pooling eyes) upon the young couple, and roared a demonic bellowing which reverberated through miles of hollow cave. She grabbed her own ruin of a face with both hands and began digging in with her claw-like nails. With tendrils of gore and bone collecting intermittently at her feet, the Queen had managed to peel off not only her outer beauty, but the front half of her cranium as well. The rear of her skull remained with the congealing brain swaying gently in the air, while the other half was hoisted up high in the Queens fist. She began thrashing it relentlessly against the wooden altar, each bludgeoning sending splatters of fluid across the room onto the couple sitting in the corner. And all the while the half brain atop the stretch of neck turning to somehow stare at them with its figurative eyes.
“Sam, Sam, no . . . please help me,” Delia cried, no longer able to keep up the charade.
There would be no need of help, however, the Queen kneeled forward with a quick lunge against the altar, obliterating what was left of her mind in perfect sacrifice.
_____________
“Chuck, someone’s got me. I’m not joking. He wants you to come to my place.”
“Why are you crying, Mon Cher Pink. I’ve never heard you like this before? Who has you?”
“Just come, right now. Please.” She hung up the phone and turned towards the man who was now standing in her kitchen, the stranger who had told her his name was Mason. It was one of the few things she had gotten out of him on the ride over to her apartment. She wasn't allowed to talk, and the man wasn’t asking too many questions. However, from what he volunteered on his own, she did gather that he worked for some type of top secret government organization, and given what he told her about his past, she thought it likely she was now standing just a few feet away from the fabled Death Knight.
“You’ll die you know. I’ll watch him eat you and savor every last drop of your feeble blood.”
Mason laughed, “I fear no one, lady. You mock while the life of your kind lay tranquil in my hands. It’s ok now, anyway. He’ll come. And I’ll find my brother, you all can’t have him.”
“Your brother?”
“Yeah . . . Sam.” Mason sighed, “and I've decided I don’t really need you anymore, the shame that it is. You were a stunning little miss, but got caught getting sweet with the rotten ones. And against such, it’s time to make my stand.”
Mason Havershampt lifted his .357 magnum revolver and thumbed back the hammer.
Last edited by Moderator; February 2nd, 2012 at 09:54 AM.
Reason: fixed typo
There are .357 magnum cartridges and then there are Mason Haverskampt .357 magnum cartridges, which he uses a re-loader to create in his dwelling beneath Loyola University. Actually, it is not directly beneath. A tunnel connecting the university with other buildings on the campus includes a few small rooms for warehousing certain supplies for a bunker almost no one ever knew about which was built during the Cold War. The bunker is reached via one of these small rooms. Mason lives in the bunker.
Mason’s revolver is a modified brushed-stainless Colt Python with a ten-inch ribbed full-lugged barrel. A .357 mag round has what is called “stopping power”, meaning a person hit anywhere on his or her body with such a round will damn sure stop whatever they are doing and really want to lie down. Many handgun rounds have stopping power. Mason's .357 has disintegrating power. After being shot the subject does not lie down, and cannot because they no longer exist, except as bone shrapnel and a kind of bloody vapor.
Now is Pinkster most apply named.
__________________
It is night. Mason Haverskampt leaves his bunker, travels the tunnel's tenth of a mile to the roots of the main building, climbs a certain set of old brick and concrete stairs with decorative and useless wrought iron railings, and which ends in a large, ancient oaken door, ignores it and steps through the little one hidden to his right.
Mason’s pockets contain four speed loaders, his leather belt, which resembles one from all the westerns, is filled with more homemade bullets than a person would believe it could carry. He is wearing leather boots. The left one includes a six-inch switchblade--closed. Just above the right boot is a shin holster holding a Browning .25 auto, modified to hold fifteen rounds. And yes, the ammo is special.
Mason checks the safety on the Walther PPK/S next to his left armpit, silently thanking God meanwhile that revolvers don’t have safeties, pulls his black leather overcoat about him and moves on.
Things had gotten bad. Really bad. Death covered the usual smell of beignets mixed with horse manure and walking down Canal Street towards the river, I noticed the air seemed sticky. Well stickier than usual. A fog had settled low, several streetlights were out, but I could see the mess Francesco had made. The pavement had become red and sticky from blood, dead bodies were randomly scattered around the street, and I could hear distant screams followed by gunshots. Yes, things had gotten bad.
I was going to need help. I thought about going to the river walk, but that was a twenty-minute walk. So, I decided to check out the quarter.
As I walked farther east, I could hear singing. When I passed a parking garage, there was an old man sitting in the booth swigging on a bottle of whiskey, and singing When Irish Eyes Smile.
What is he doing? He must be crazy-drunk.
I walked to the booth and stood in front of the window. He was drinking twenty-year-old Pappy Van Winkle straight from the bottle. At least he's drinking with class.
When he noticed me, he stopped singing, but kept drinking.
“What do you want? Can’t you see I’m workin’ here?” he said with an Irish accent.
“I think you should take the day off. The city is dangerous.”
He put down his bottle and pointing his finger to the glass he said, “Don’t tell me what’s safe…I was a soldier when you were wearin' diapers.”
I doubted that, but wasn’t going to argue.
“Do you not see all those dead bodies on the street?”
With a sigh, he said, “Aye… I’ve seen too much death.”
“Then why are here? You need to get out of the city?”
He turned his head toward the street, and I could see a hint of sadness in his face.
“Before I came to this county I fought with the army. We men caused a lot of death. I came here over forty years ago to get away from blood and death…now look at this mess.”
Sirens started going off and an ambulance rushed passed the garage. As the sirens gradually faded, the fluorescent lights starting blinking until they faded out completely. Dim emergency lights replaced the darkness.
“No, I can‘t leave my post, someone might need help.”
“Let me take you somew…”
“NO! Look here, I survived Belfast and Derry, I think I can handle a few backward zombies,” he said then took a long swig from his bottle.
I didn’t have time to change his mind. I had to find Monique.
“Aright, old timer,” I said and showed him my gun, “do you need this?”
He laughed, held up a double barrel shotgun, and said, “I'm covered.”
I nodded and started to walk away when he asked me my name.
“Charles LeFluer.”
“Well, LeFluer, I want you to take this. It was my wife’s.”
He reached through the tray, opened his hand, and in his palm was a gold necklace with a heart clasped to the chain. You will always be my special Valentine was engraved on the front of the heart.
“I can’t take this. It was your wife's. You should keep it”
His eyes were distance and he had a smile on his wrinkled face. “Maureen was the love of my life. She has been gone for...ten years. Go ahead take it...Give it to your sweet heart…someone should have it,” he said.
I nodded, put the necklace in my pocket, and I stepped back on to Canal. He had started singing, but the old Irish lyrics stopped as a shotgun fired.
I continued walking towards The Quarter, and I tried calling The Dungeon, but the line had been disconnected. I was going to have to call Whelan. For a human, he was tough, tall, and handsome. Monique acted weird when he’d come around. I really hated him and his ugly mutt he always had with him.
He told me to meet him at The Dungeon in twenty minutes. I had to move fast.
I stopped on the corner of Lasalle and Canal where the traffic light was blinking. Suddenly two cars crashed into each other, I slipped into an ally and crouched behind a dumpster, and heard two gunshots followed by screams. I decided to take Tulane.
As I was walking, I heard a familiar growl. Hendrix. I turned and the white German shepherd was showing me his pearly whites.
“Easy there Hendrix...it's me...Chuck”
He slowly started towards me. Thankfully, his owner stepped in front of the beast.
“Hendrix Down…La Fluer, you ready to tell me what's goin' on?"
This guy had a tendency to show up out of nowhere.
“You said to meet you at The Dungeon.”
“You don't wanna go there...I was just there...and that kind,” Whelan said pointing at two men slowly stumbling towards us, “is eating your kind,”
He didn’t know what he was talking about, “That's impossible...I'm dead! You don‘t know what you’re talking about. ”
They were walking towards me with an expression I recognized. Hunger.
I went to pull out my iron but two shots had already went off and those two were on the ground. Now I remembered why I called the SOB.
This wasn’t normal. Dead don't eat dead.
“We got to tell The Queen,” I said.
“What's she gonna do? Mumble some satanic BS and the freaks will magically stop eating everything that moves? C'mon, follow me.”
So we walked down, cut through Rampart, and got back on Canal. I was following him and Hendrix. As I walked, he told me what was happening at The Dungeon.
“I walked in there and it was like a buffet. Kyper was eating Collette.”
“What!”
“Did I stutter? Now we are both on the menu, and just like me if you get bit you become his kind...or whatever,” Whelan said.
I couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that zombies were eating zombies...it just didn't make any sense. What was Francesco's motive?
“Let’s go in here”
I looked up and read the billboard sign. Apparently Sugar Hill Gang was supposed to head Zulu this year. From what I could tell, nobody would be rockin’ to the bang anytime soon.
“Why the Palace?” I asked.
“You’ll see.”
***
I hadn’t even thought of The Palace in years. I went there a few times, but it wasn’t my scene. Too many drugged out losers and police raids. Francesco actual hosted a party there back 01’. He hired a bunch of Deejays, made some flyers, and kids flooded into the place. He and his kind were just about to dine on a bunch of naive raver kids when the DEA decided to do a raid. Perfect timing if you ask me.
We knocked down the door, and Whalen sent Hendrix in first.
“At least he’s good for something”
“Shut up”
Within a few minutes, he barked.
“It’s clear,” he said and handed me a flashlight.
The place had been closed since Katrina, and from the smell, we were the first to open the door in seven years
As we walked through the main room towards the stage, he told about State Palace Theater.
“I use to date a chick who danced here back in the late nineties. This place was built in the twenties. Well, back then bootlegging was big money, and the owners built a passage that runs under Ramapart, connects to Common and runs all the way to Port New Orleans. The Mississippi was ideal for delivering dope and booze to New Orleans. When a shipment came, they’d pay the owner to let them use the tunnel to get the goods into the city. Not a bad idea."
“Anyway, my ex told me she and some of her friends went down in the tunnel to get high one night during a show. They didn’t last five second when she tripped over a skull and decided she didn’t want to explore. I guess the tunnel was good for dumping bodies too. We can probably find a boat at the port and get out of the city.”
“I can’t leave without Monique. We have to find….
“I’m getting out of this Petri dish of a city! If you wanna become one of Francesco’s slaves then you can stick around. But I’m out.”
Right then I heard the sound of a gun being cocked, and Hendrix started growling. Whelan shined his flashlight up, and from one of the box seats I saw a man wearing an overcoat pointing a very large revolver at me. Where did he come from? Obviously, Hendrix had been slacking on the job. He started barking then, though.
“Shut that mutt up, or I’m going to put a bullet in him,” the man said.
Whelan pulled his gun and said, “You can shoot the zombie, but if you shoot the dog your dead.”
The man put his gun back in his holster, crossed his arms, and said, “Okay…but where is my brother?”
Across the ocean, the sands of the African shore shifted and the rhythm played on ....
____________________________
Francesco stood alone outside the plantation boundaries, stalking the sky for any sign of the Serpent.
Today he’d called on lesser spirits, demons of old, from inside the church. The spiteful imps answered with joy, and his tattered army fed on both civilians and the foolish followers of his nemesis, Mambo.
Mambo, dead for centuries.
Francesco knew that Mambo had influence on her followers from beyond the grave. The bouncer at the bar was proof enough. Le Fleur and the actions of his “holier than thou” zombie brotherhood showed that Mambo Asogwe still reigned.
All I need to do is get inside the plantation and finish her for good. The couple from that hick town in Ohio gave me the extra power boost. Fools.
They had no faith in dark practice. Playing parlor games with their life. So be it. Easy prey.
Fools like Sam and Delia came to town to drown sorrow, forget troubles, sing a song, and to view or be viewed. He invited them in with promises of forgetfulness ... and forget their lives, they did.
He loved stealing souls and now he had the chance to have the city all to himself.
It was time. He called to the demon spirits for the second time that day. They arrived in a throng of weaving foulness.
He signaled and the demons formed a curtain of buzzing blackness at his back.
This will be mine.
Fortified, he took a step onto the plantation ground.
His boot crushed the soil. He felt the crunch of a bone lying beneath the ground. As the bone disintegrated, sharp piercing stabs came at him from all directions. His skin began to erupt in fiery red wounds. He swung his arms, batting the air to swat away the barrage. As the stabs came faster he realized the demons were projecting arrow-like stings. The demons he’d called! The venom in the stings transfered the pain of demon sin into his body. Unable to withstand the onslaught, writhing and stumbling, he retreated off blessed ground.
He bowed down low to cough up the bile bitterness within his soulless corpse.
“I did not bow to her,” he whispered to the sky. “I did not.”
Mambo. She had the power to turn his demons against him.
Those fools! They've boosted her power of dark and light as well.
As he spoke he became aware of a change in the plantation’s nexus.
The four corners of the plantation’s boundaries lit in a glow. One by one he saw the symbols flare and the gates illuminate.
He needed to get inside the plantation.
“The power of the Serpent.” He yowled a shriek to the crescent shaped moon.
Last edited by Moderator; February 13th, 2012 at 09:28 AM.
Whalen didn't flinch as he kept his gun aimed up at Mason. Although I didn’t like Whalen, I trusted him. Whalen killed without guilt, but he killed with warrant. Mason was different. I didn't trust him. Not only was he a killer, he was a user.
Suddenly a clicking sound came from the blackness surrounding us. I turned around scanning my flashlight along the stage, the far wall, and the upper balcony.
The steady click reminded me of wood tapping on marble. I ran my light along rows of seats. Pointing the light to the front, I saw the source of the click. The source of the clicking-cheap paten stilettos worn by a woman who had seen better days. Her lacy dress had been ripped, oozing sores covered her gray parched skin, shiny beads tangled around her neck, and her hair was matted into one dreadlock.
“Move,” I heard Whalen say. “Unless you want me to shoot through you.”
“Wait,” I said taking a step closer. I saw something in her eyes. She gazed at me with intuitive eyes. I fired my gun, opening up her skull.
His kind couldn't think, but this one looked as if she was doing calculus in her head. They had evolved; something had given them the ability to reason. If they continued evolving, pure evil would take over the world.
"Whalen we have problem,” I said walking down the aisle towards him.
“Yeah we do,” Whalen said. “Mason gone.”
***
It was seven in the morning. Sunrays filled the front lobby. Although The Palace had been condemned for years, it still had class. Nineteenth century French cut chandeliers hung from high ceilings. The walls were an ivory marble. Red carpet covered the steps of a grand staircase leading to a balcony with brass railing.
My eyes began rolling back in my head. I slid to the floor, and sleep overwhelmed me. In my dream, woods surrounded me. I walked through the trees until I came to a rusted fence enclosing rows of jagged stones . I jumped the fence. Walking on a dirt path, I came across a large black stone with, Nan 1842-1862 carved in the center. I was in a graveyard for slaves. Rigid stones and pieces of brick served as headstones. Some of the graves only had a footstone.
To the right of the cemetery was a trail. I jumped the fence and followed the trail to a large open field. I had been here before. I recognized the shacks at the edge of the woods. Two rows of trees formed a canopy leading to an antebellum style plantation house. As I walked towards the house, I could see a woman wearing a white hooded robe, waving from the porch. It was Monique. Suddenly, my face felt wet. She faded as I awoke to Hendrix licking my face.
“Time to wake up Sleeping Beauty,” Whalen said. “We need to go.”
Rubbing the sleep off my eyes, I stood up and asked, “What did you find?”
He told me the tunnel had been barricaded. Mason must have used it to get into The Palace. Barricading it when he left in order to prevent us from following him.
I followed Whalen to the roof. A brick building stood close enough to for us to reach the fire escape. Hendrix stayed behind to be the lookout. I would have felt safer leaving that task to a doll.
The building stood about twenty stories with a view stretching to Jackson Square. Broken glass, beer cans, plastic cups, beads, clothing, and body parts littered the streets. The Riverfront was crowded with his kind. Hundreds of them gathered at the Riverwalk. Cars stood still forming a bottleneck jam on the New Orleans Bridge.
“We can’t take the tunnel or the bridge and it is too dangerous to stroll through the city,” Whalen said. “How are we going to get out?”
I didn’t know the answer to that, but I had to find Monique, “I’m not leaving without Monique.”
A knife could cut through the layers of tension between us. Whalen glared at me. He threw his arms up and said, “Why are you being so stubborn?”
Yes, I was being stubborn. So, I asked him, “Why don’t you just go? You don’t need me.” He wouldn’t leave without me because Whalen always paid a debt.
From below, Hendrix started barking. Climbing up the fire escape was a man with a face like The Joker.
“What the…” Whalen said, “How’s he climbing?”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you. They’re smart.”
Hendrix started barking as a mob flooded towards him. He stood his ground as they surrounded him. Dashing through the crowd, he avoided arms grabbing for him.
Whalen looked calm. He put his sunglasses on and said, "C’mon, Rampart Street is clear. We can use the other fire escape."
"What about Hendrix, shouldn't we try to save him."
"He'll make," he said.
"Whalen there's at least twenty of them."
"I know," he said, climbing on to the ladder.
We found an ally not far from the fire escape landing, "Let's wait in this side street," he said. "He'll be here in a few."
His calm demeanor surprised me. He had always been protective of Hendrix. I assumed denial. Hendrix didn't have a chance. They would rip him apart before he could make it off the roof. After five minutes, I started to say he couldn't have made it. Whalen cut me off with a sharp whistle. Within a few seconds Hendrix pranced around the corner.
“Told you,” Whalen said. “So where should we look first?”
Hendrix continued to pace in the alley around the corner from The Palace. I said, “I know where Monique is being held.”
“Want to share,” Whalen said, “or is it still nap time?”
Whalen was a tough guy, but human. We’d never get where we were going if I told him my plan was based on a dream. Small steps work best with his kind. “We need to find Monique.” I replied. “But, first we have to make sure the two idiots you left at the Dungeon are all right.”
“They’re with the last bouncer standing guard in the place.” Whalen replied.
“Monique and I left them in your care, friend.”
Whalen popped a piece of gum in his mouth and leaned down to pet Hendrix. I waited. Whalen was ornery. Still, he had a strong sense of duty. He continued, “I wouldn’t have left them, but ....”
“Save it.” I said. “Rampart Street won’t be clear for long.”
“C’mon Hendrix,” Whalen said to the mutt. We moved fast and arrived at the Dungeon unscathed. The bouncer ran out the busted door straight into the hungry bite of a crazed flambeau carrier, who’d lost more than his performance art during this Mardi Gras. The place was in shambles. No longer the pleasure palace of first resort. The brains of the Queen of the Dungeon were strewn over the altar. No help would come from her minor power. Kyper and Collette’s gore splattered the daiquiri blender. There was no time to grieve.
Sam and Delia cowered under an overthrown table. We pulled the couple out from the rubbish. As they couldn’t stand, walk, or talk, Whalen heaved Sam over one of his massive shoulders and Delia over the other one. “Where to?” he asked.
“I know the place.” I replied. “It’s outside the city.”
Whalen shrugged and called Hendrix to heel. I took the lead, staying as far away from the mutt as possible. We headed toward the plantation through a street dance of mayhem, dodging the party dolls, who had conniving looks in more ways than one.
___________________________________
Mason stepped out from behind the brewery, glanced at the pack of tattered women in stiletto heels, and continued to shadow Whalen and Chuck.
_________________________________
Francesco stood outside the plantation, gazing at the illuminated gates. The demons had departed, to return only if Francesco tried to step on blessed ground.
“Answer me,” he called out to the Serpent spirit, “Mambo is not in control. She’s a vapid Queen who appointed a lesser monarch unqualified to rule. I deserve full power.”
The night remained silent.
“I won’t snivel and beg for charity.” Francesco said, aware that Mambo had blocked his ability to call on the spirit conduit needed to cause the plantation gates to close. “If Mason did as he was told, then LeFleur will come,” Francesco continued to speak aloud to ease his panic. “I will control the city without another plea to the spirit.”
____________________________________________________________ __
Whalen had a heavy load carrying the idiots. He and Hendrix followed a few steps behind me. Good; I needed a minute alone to figure out who had Monique.
The Valentine locket the old timer gave me began to give off red-hot heat. My side began to smolder, and my pocket caught fire, then flared out. In this town, heat like the locket possessed is a warning. Baffled, I looked down at my scorching pocket. I saw the words You will always be my special Valentine scrawling across the fabric in a brief etching of gold and fire. The words faded away, leaving ashes and a large hole. I recalled the old timer’s story about the love of his life, gone for ten years.
Monique. We kept a secret life, the two of us, over the years. I never spoke of our tryst. We’d tumble and toss, then overlook the city from my balcony and talk the night away, till the sun rose, and we took on the ruse of our friendship again.
Monique was my special valentine. The warning from the amulet was clear. The love of my life was dead, at least in this world. I sat down on the corner, understanding why the old timer drank and sang his songs.
“What are you doing?” Whalen asked as he caught up with me, “The whole city is coming apart, and you decide to sit down to sing a requiem.”
There was only one man who could best Monique, and I knew him. “We have to find Mason,” I replied. “Now.” I didn’t care what Whalen thought about my actions. He could shut up; he owed me, and the debt was due.
“Why the change in plan?” Whalen asked. “Have you lost the last bit of sense you possess?”
Maybe I had lost my mind and the last piece of what passed for my heart. “Time to pay up, Whalen,” I replied, “I need to find Mason. We split up here. You take Hendrix and the couple to the plantation. I’ll meet you there. It’s one block up, south.”
We went our separate paths. I thought back on my dream and the sight of Monique waving me to the plantation porch. Then, I knew where to start looking for Mason.
I hustled around the corner and found one of the secrets Monique shared with me: the hidden tunnel entrance that led to the plantation house. I entered the pitch blackness, moving through the smell of sweat and fear that filled the space, and opened the trap door buried under a layer of plantation dirt.
I climbed out of the tunnel and ran to the house, searching all around the ramshackle remains of porch boards. Nothing! No sign of Mason.
I looked out over the grounds. Whalen had his lot, in tow, on the edge of the plantation. Hendrix flew across the field toward me. He bounded up the steps, breaking rotten boards, and came to rest a few feet from me. He dropped a cheap, fake leather satchel out of his mouth onto the porch. I opened the purse and the smell of cheap make-up and perfume filled the air. The party girls, dolls we called them, dressed in torn lace and fishnet stockings had been raging through the city and they’d become harder to handle. I opened up the skull of one this morning, because I didn’t like the look in her eyes. It was one of their satchels. I turned it over, dumped the contents out, and there was the cause of Monique’s death ... Mason’s automatic.
I looked across the field at Hendrix running back to Whalen. I never liked the mutt, but he helped me out this time. As I surveyed the grounds, I saw Mason step out of the shadows behind Whalen.
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