Charming Grace (45 page)

“The only word I’ve had is that Mr. Senterra’s wife, daughters,
and
son were on the jet that left Atlanta this afternoon.”

“Leo wouldn’t leave without telling me! He’s been kidnapped!”

The strains of the
Star Trek
theme suddenly emitted from her tiny cell phone. She popped the phone to her ear. “Leo! You’re where? Hiding in the restroom somewhere over
Oklahoma
? Omigod.” Mika listened intently for a minute, shifting from one Birkenstocked foot to another, an agitated hand rising to her hair, which she’d recently done in tiny dreadlocks. By the time Leo finished his part of the conversation, her black dreads were wound in her fist and she had tears in her eyes. “You let your dad run your life. He says jump and you
still
just do it. You’re afraid to even
call
me where he can
hear
you!”

More listening, more dread-winding, and now the tears slid down Mika’s angry expression. “Don’t even bother. No. Don’t even tell me. I don’t
care
if he’s upset and needs the family’s support right now. You’re a
grown
man. Act like one! No, don’t give me any excuses. Run back to La-La-Land.
Stay
there. Let him twist your arm until you give up and join the army or the navy or the marines or. . .or the
World Wrestling Federation
, for all I care! Go ahead and be miserable and become the stupid he-man your dad wants you to be! Maybe some day you’ll have the courage to be your
own
kind of man, but clearly, right now you don’t have the courage to be
mine
.”

She snapped the cell phone shut, jabbed it in the pocket of her baggy painter pants, and sobbed. “We were going to boldly go where no one had gone, before.”

G. Helen put an arm around her. “
Men.
Can’t live
with
‘em; can’t live without ‘em. And can’t ship ‘em off to another planet.” She and Roarke traded rueful smiles, then G. Helen led Mika into the shady front yard for some private crying time.

I pivoted toward the security guard again. “Just tell me how to get in touch with Tex and Mojo.”

“They’re on the jet, ma’am. You can’t talk with them. Mr. Senterra controls all calls on board.”

Roarke arched a gray brow. “Unless they’re smart enough to hide in the toilet.”

The guard turned red. “Excuse me, I’ve got work to do. Mr. Senterra wants this house closed up until further notice. I don’t know if or when he’s coming back.” The guard went inside and shut the door.

I paced. “I have to go to Louisiana. I have to try to find Boone and help him. I can’t just sit here.”

Roarke stopped me with a big, callused hand on my shoulder. “This is between him and his brother. It’s been comin’ a long time, and it needs to be settled.”

“Armand will get Boone hurt.”

“Could be. But Boone has to decide whether to let him call the shots for the rest of their lives.” He paused. “With that said, I’m gettin’ on the next plane to Louisiana, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you, but. . .what makes you think you can accomplish more than I can?”

Roarke smiled grimly. “Let’s just say I know the kind of people who know the people Armand calls
friends
.”

Chapter 19

Armand was in trouble. I knew that much. Where, how, and how bad, I wasn’t sure. But after three days of making the rounds in places where
the rounds
can get a man squarely killed, I was about to find out.

I walked into a suburban New Orleans showroom full of flowery-colored little Japanese cars and told the lady at the desk, “I’m Boone Noleene. I’m here to see Terence McCarthy. I have an appointment.”

Before she could so much as pick up her phone, a skinny, middle-aged black guy dressed for country-club golf leapt out of a back hallway. “I’ve got it, Shalell.”

She looked startled. “Yessir, Reverend McCarthy.”

“Hold my calls. No calls, and no knocks on my door, please. Nothin’.”

“Yessir.”

McCarthy, frowning, grabbed me by one arm and tugged me down a paneled hallway. When we were safely behind the fancy door of his paneled office, he shook his head and blew out a long breath of relief. “I spotted you on the security camera, boy. I was
hopin’
you wouldn’t just walk in through the front door.”

“Well, hey, Titter, it’s nice to see you again, too. Stolen any good cars lately?”

“
Don’t
you call me by that name.” He thrust a finger in my face. “I haven’t gone by that name in a
lot
of years. I’m a respectable automobile dealer now.
And
a Baptist preacher. Got me a couple of nice little
chillen
in private school and a nice Baptist wife who don’t know nothing about the car thief who used to be
Titter
. I’ve gotten right with the Lord, Noleene, which is why I’m
tryin’
to help you and Armand.”

“I been talkin’ to a lot of our past
business associates
. But I never thought I’d get a call from
you
.”

“Believe me, I didn’t want
nothing
to do with this situation of yours. But I took a likin’ to you and Armand back when you, hmmm, did some
business
with me, and I’d rather not see Armand end up at the bottom of some swamp wearin’ concrete boots. So I agreed to get a message to you.”

I went very still. “What message?”

“Your bro is in deep shit with some bad-ass money boys. All those gambling deals he was runnin’ from prison? Well, seems Armand got himself accused of skimming a little off the top, you know. The boys think he’s stashed a couple of million dollars in some Caribbean bank or something. They want their money back.”

I groaned silently. “Where do I go, and who do I see?”

The former Titter McCarthy, now the Right Reverend Terence McCarthy, pressed a piece of paper in my hand. “I wrote it all down. Now get outta here. Don’t you tell a single soul you
ever
knew me. And may the Lord bless you and Armand.”

“I keep hopin’,” I said.

Two million dollars. Two million. Dollars.
Holy merde.
I had a chunk of money in good investment accounts, thanks to three years’ of being overpaid by Stone—those regular raises hadn’t gone out the window—but at best I could put together maybe seven-fifty in cash, less than half the asking price for Armand’s life. The address Titter gave me turned out to be an old tin-roofed warehouse and office out in bayou country, not that far from where Armand and I grew up.

Like a smart man, I phoned ahead.

“You got my brother,” I said. “I want him back.”

“Come and see us with money in hand, and we’ll talk,” said a thick down home voice with no humor in it.

“If my brother’s not healthy, then ain’t
nobody
goin’ to be healthy.”

“He’s a little banged up, but he’ll do. That’s what he gets for trying to leave the country without payin’ his bills.”

Leave the country? What the hell had Armand tried to do? Head for the Caribbean and play at bein’ a pirate? Why didn’t he tell me?

I didn’t know
how
I’d get two million bucks in quick cash, now that I was a Cajun
persona non grata
with Stone, but I knew I’d beg, borrow, or steal to do it. “I’ll get you the money, and you keep my brother upright and breathin’.”

“That’s a deal, partner.” The asshole hesitated a second. Then, “But I want a bonus. Get me Stone Senterra’s autograph, too.”

Shit.

“You must’ve been a lousy criminal,” a voice said behind me in the bayou diner where I was staring into a cup of coffee at two a.m. “You’re easy to track down, and you look guilty as hell.”

It was Roarke. He dropped into the chair across from me while I stared at him in disbelief. He looked worse for wear, in a coffee-stained shirt and old jeans, his eyes hollow and tired. “I been all over this damned state for the past few days, looking for you in every outhouse and casino and bayou bar. Get me a cup of coffee.”

“For an old ex-con who likes to meddle in dangerous business,” I said gruffly, “you act mighty smug.”

“It was either me come lookin’ for you, or Grace. Her grandma’s pretty much got her under twenty-four hour guard, makin’ sure she doesn’t head for the airport.”

I straightened.

Grace.
“I don’t want Grace worryin’ about me.”

What a lie. I didn’t want Grace hurt. But I
did
want her to worry about me. To care. To love.

Roarke saw right through me. “So you want her to
celebrate
if you get your brains beaten out tryin’ to rescue Armand?”

I sagged. “Guess you know what’s goin’ on.”

“Yep. I have resources. Old cons.”

“I need money. A lot of it. I’ve got a chunk of my own, but it’s not enough.”

“Tell me something—did your mama raise any
fools
? Don’t you understand that these shit-kickers will take your money then kill you
and
Armand just for insurance?”

“I have to take that chance. It’s not like I can get the police involved. That’d be the end of Armand, for sure. Look, these gambling honchos aren’t interested in killin’ people they don’t have to kill. They mostly just want their money.”

“If it’s that easy—which it ain’t—I can
give
you the money,” Roarke said simply.

I stared at him. “You don’t have to—”

“Call it an advance on your salary.”

After a second, I got my voice under control and said, “If you do this for my brother, I’ll draw houses for you the rest of my life. For free. Happily. I swear.”

“Let’s get Armand out of trouble, and then I’ll talk to you about terms.”

“There’s only one thing I need that you can’t loan me, and that I
can’t
get for these dicks who have Armand.”

“What?”

“Stone’s autograph.”

Roarke pulled a phone out of his pocket. “Sounds like you’ve come up with the perfect assignment for Grace. Gettin’ that autograph will keep her busy.”

“He doesn’t stand a chance,” I said.

“My name is Grace Vance, and this is my niece, Mika DuLane, and I expect you have a pair of security passes waiting for us,” I told the guard at the studio entrance. I handed him our drivers’ licenses as I.D. Mika and I traded sly looks over the tops of our skinny black sunglasses. The bright California light made us squint at each other like cats smiling at birds.

The guard looked through his files, nodded, then handed us a pair of intricate badges with holographic bar codes. High-tech stuff, and only for VIPs.
God bless Tex and Mojo.
“There you go, ladies.”

We hung the badges around our necks, fluffed our hair, then headed into a labyrinth of huge soundstages and offices. We looked harmless enough in snug jeans and pastel tank tops, just a pair of Hollywood babes pretending to be Julia Roberts and a teenaged Halle Berry. As we sashayed innocently toward the largest of the soundstages, where a huge sign above one entrance said DEEP SPACE REVENGE, PRODUCTION IN PROGRESS, we got more than a few admiring looks from technical guys, male studio execs, and even a few recognizable actors.

“It’s working,” Mika whispered. “Boobs and tight jeans are like some kind of distractor shield on a starship.”

“Let’s hope we get inside that soundstage over there before anyone realizes
I’m
the Grace Vance who trashed Stone’s movie.”

“Swish your booty more,” Mika ordered solemnly.

“Any
swishier
and I’ll look like Johnny Depp in
Pirates of the Caribbean
.”

Mika chortled. I swished. It worked.

Tex and Mojo were waiting for us. They’d managed to stake out the sound stage’s main door. I exhaled with relief as they waved us inside.

“Lord-a-mercy,” Tex drawled. “I’ve got no idea how y’all got onto this set or what yahoo got you them passes. You got any clue, Mojo?”

Mojo shook his head and looked heavenward, as if answers might float down from the stage’s cavernous, industrial ceiling. “It’s just one of those unexplainable lapses in security.”