Hide and Snake Murder (5 page)

Baz was already headed into the café. “What are you waiting for?” he called over his shoulder.

“You should be waiting for us, doofus. We're the ones with the money.” I itched to whap the back of his shiny head. Coop and I followed him into the café's open-air seating area beneath the signature green and white striped awning.

Round bistro tables and Fifties-style chairs with greenish-yellow vinyl sat beneath the canopy. White-aproned waiters wearing paper serving hats moved with astounding grace between the tables, serving up sets of three beignets to drooling customers.

We hoisted our bags and threaded our way to the end of the take-out ordering line, which, thankfully, wasn't overly long. The aroma of freshly cooked sweet dough and chicory coffee drifted through the air, and my mouth watered. For once, Baz had had a good idea.

Beignets procured, Baz, Coop, and I made our way to the curb as we munched on the sugary confection. Jackson Square, kitty-corner across the road, was the hub of artistic and impromptu goings on. The square bustled with painters, tarot card readers, and street performers.

I could see two psychics, a couple of magicians, an artist, a dark-haired ice cream vendor chick whose sizeable ice cream cooler was hooked to a blaze-orange moped, a hot-dog vendor, and a Statue of Liberty mime. The mime was dressed from head to toe in shimmering green and stood motionless on a gold-painted wooden crate about a block away. Statue mimes fascinated me, and I always wondered how they could hold out on scratching the inevitable itch.

Next to Lady Liberty, a punker chick with a pink Mohawk and fatigue pants sat on an upended five-gallon pail, drumming a hypnotic rhythm on three plastic buckets of varying sizes. A black-furred canine assistant gently collected tips in its mouth and deposited them in a bowl that lay on the ground in front of the mime's feet. Every so often, the statue would shift position, earning shrieks of delight from the children watching raptly from the sidelines.

I wiped sticky fingers on a napkin, tossed it in a nearby garbage can, and adjusted my backpack. Coop had already snarfed his own beignets down, and I could tell from his restless pacing and the white of his knuckles as he strangled the strap of his messenger bag that he desperately wanted a cigarette. “Hang tough, big guy.”

He nodded and went back to walking the edge of the curb. We waited for Baz to wolf the rest of his snack down, which was going to take a while since he'd had the balls to get a double order. Powdered sugar coated his lips, and a white smear of the stuff somehow adorned his forehead. The travel bag between his feet was sprinkled liberally with powder.

Coop said impatiently, “Hurry up, Baz.”

“I'm trying.” Baz held the bag containing his goodies in one hand, and a half a beignet in the other. He shoved another bite into his mouth as soon as he swallowed the previous one. Suddenly, Baz made spastic motions with one hand and tried to say something. Beignet and powdered sugar sprayed from between his lips. I thought he was choking, and I pounded on his back.

Baz violently shook me off, his eyes wild.

Coop's “What the—” was drowned out as Baz blew the last of the chunks of donut from his mouth. He yelled, “Run!” and dropped the half-full bag of beignets. He left his travel bag on the sidewalk and sprinted across the road.

“What's his problem?” Coop muttered. He bent to pick up Baz's bag.

I caught sight of a huge mountain of a man and another guy steaming fill tilt toward us.

A half-second of frozen disbelief later I howled, “Holy shit, Coop, run!”

We charged across the road into Jackson Square, Coop juggling Baz's bag with his own. Baz was a quarter-block ahead of us, short legs churning. He was closing in on the group of magicians and the Statue of Liberty. The despicable duo was less than a block behind us. I could hear them shouting, but I couldn't make out what they were saying.

“Come on, Shay!” Coop hollered.

“I'm trying,” I panted, pumping my arms hard, my backpack slamming against my shoulder blades with each stride. I was fast but no match for Coop's long legs.

Tourists looked our way, unalarmed, assuming our little chase was a part of the acts on the square. We zigzagged around clumps of trees and milling people.

I shouted, “I'm sorry!” to one woman I clipped. Baz was almost to the statue performer, and we were closing the gap. Loud voices echoed behind us. I wasn't sure if the bad guys were catching up or if vacationers were angry we'd stampeded through them, but I wasn't about to slow down to find out.

I blinked, and Baz disappeared.

Coop bellowed, “Hey! Baz!” and we both slowed about twenty feet from the performers, searching the crowd for the top of the fat little man's glistening head. Four of the vendors had closed ranks and stood on either side of Liberty. The tempo of the drumming sped up to a pounding staccato rhythm, helping to increase the size of the audience. Our pursuers were caught in the rear of the swelling crowd. Before we could take off again, the black dog working the audience for tips appeared in front of us. He barked and grabbed my pants leg in his teeth and pulled.

“Damn it, let go!” I tried to shake him off, terror oozing up my spine. The dog used his weight to drag me forward, toward the gap between the audience and Lady Liberty.

One of the magicians who'd set up next to the mime stood a few feet away. With small black eyes and a pointy black goatee, he looked like a cross between Johnny Depp the pirate and Johnny Depp of
Edward Scissorhands
. He moved toward us, and said under his breath, “Go with it.”

Go with what? I shot a look behind us again. The two villains had shoved their way through about half the gathered crowd. They'd be on us in seconds. Coop gave me a skeptically raised eyebrow and shrugged. No time to argue. I allowed the dog to pull me toward Liberty. The drumming rose to an even higher, louder pitch. The dog released me once we got to the center of the open area and trotted off to the side.

People had started clapping in time to the rapid-fire beat, raising the noise level until the only thing I could hear was an all-consuming, thunderous roar.

Another magician, dressed in a Dr. Seuss top hat and sporting a billowing black cape, stepped between the crowd and us. He raised his arms, and effectively created a wall from the audience with the ends of the satiny cape attached to his wrists.

Invisible speakers boomed with the sound of the magician's deep, hypnotic voice. “Welcome to the Great Jackson Square Disappearing Act, where we make people go … ” He snapped his fingers. “POOF!”

He paused a long moment, and in that time, the dog moved in and nipped my pants again, pulling more gently this time. I grabbed Coop's sleeve and allowed the mutt to lead us past the mime. The only thing that so much as twitched on the frozen performer were her eyes, which followed our progress.

Dr. Seuss continued his pitch, but I ceased hearing his words. White noise took over.

I hadn't realized the ice cream vendor had moved her moped and cooler behind the performers, next to the wrought iron fence surrounding the square until the dog let go of my pant leg and trotted over to her.

“Bags over there, mates.” Her cheerful voice had a melodic accent, and it took a moment to place it. Australian. She jerked her thumb in the direction of a powder-blue plastic storage bin hidden behind one of the artist's set-ups. Coop and I flung our bags into the container.

With lightning speed, she lifted up the entire top of the cooler and said, “In you go.” The tank-like freezer was about three feet in height, four feet wide, and about six feet long. Coop and I peered inside, and instead of ice cream, a frozen-looking Baz lay against the far wall, the expression on his face one of shock and amazement.

With no time to consider anything, we dove into the deep freeze. Baz grunted when Coop landed half on top of him, and Coop groaned when I rolled into the container and crashed into him. I didn't think we were all going to fit, but somehow we did. Our ice cream dream babe shut the top, latched it, and opened the foot-square ice cream retrieval hatch so we could breathe. Muffled sounds from outside filtered into the cooler. It was obvious when the crowd exploded in a joyful frenzy that the show was over.

A booming voice filtered clearly into the cool, shadowed interior of the cooler. “Thank you for watching the Great Jackson Square Disappearing Act, where you never know who will vanish next!”

The freezer began to rock as our savior fired up the moped and motored slowly away. I heard her say a number of times, “Sorry, mates, all out of ice cream. No worries, I'll be back tomorrow.”

Sounds of the rowdy crowd faded as we swayed back and forth in our sardine can. At least the interior was cool.

Coop wheezed, “Shay, I love you, but can you slide a little to the left?” I shifted, and he moaned in relief. “My nuts will never be the same.”

“Sorry.” I wiggled closer to the ice-cold wall. “What just happened?”

Baz said, “I'm not sure if we were an accidental part of that magical act or what, but these guys saved our butts.”

The cart hit a sizeable pothole. We bounced against the cold, hard bottom, and jostled back and forth. Suddenly Baz let out an inhuman cry. “My wip is stuck to da wall! Ow ow ow ow!”

For the next few minutes, Coop and I enjoyed an orchestra of Baz's pain-filled howls. I made very sure to keep my lips and tongue as far from the cold gray metal as I could.

The cart slowed, and we made two consecutive sharp turns. The bright light that filtered through the open serving-hole darkened, and the cooler came to a stop. Fifteen seconds passed, and then the sound of latches connecting the top to the base of the freezer echoed as they were undone.

Baz whimpered.

I whispered, “Don't move. Your lip will stay there without the rest of you if you try.” I almost felt bad for him.

Then the top of the cooler was removed, and our rescuer's head appeared. She looked to be about twenty-five.

“Crikey, you must be some kind of friends for this treatment.”

We stared up at her. Coop said, “What are you talking about?”

“Yeah, wha you talkin' 'out?” Baz sounded like Arnold from
Diff'rent Strokes
.

She looked at Baz. “Is your lip stuck to the metal? Oh my, where are my manners? Let's get you out of there. You with the lip, hang on.” A warm, tanned hand reached in and closed around my icy fingers. She helped me out of the ice cream freezer, and I jumped to the concrete floor.

We were in a dimly lit area the size of a basketball court. Various ice cream vending contraptions sat against one wall. In front of those, four mobile hot dog stands waited for use in the center of the floor. Another wall was divided into six postage-stamp-sized changing areas. Two worktables were lined up in front of a six-foot makeup counter that overflowed with beautifying or face-altering accoutrements. Round vanity lights surrounded a mirror mounted above the table.

Coop climbed out, and then Ms. Australia said to Baz, “One minute, mate, and I'll have you loose.”

She strode over to a one of the tables and grabbed a bottle of water. The Australian was a little shorter than I was, but stockier in all the right places. The old me might have said
Hey, baby, after this, let's hook up
. Now I just thought it instead of acting on my impulses. I guess my relationship with JT really was good for me.

“Here you go,” she said. She slowly trickled water between Baz's lip and the metal wall of the cart. After a minute, Baz said clearly, “Oh, thanks. Thank you.”

He wobbled and nearly fell on his face getting out of the cart, but thanks to a fast hand from Coop, he maintained what was left of his dignity.

Ms. Australia said, “I suppose I should introduce myself. I'm Gabby Green, and I bet you're wondering what just happened, eh?”

Coop rubbed his hands together to restore circulation. “You could say that.”

Gabby Green leaned against the ice cream cart, her iridescent blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “You'll find out soon enough.”

As she spoke, one side of the tall, rolling doors slid open. One of the magicians, the bucket drummer, and the Statue of Liberty entered the warehouse. Liberty deposited the powder-blue container that presumably held our bags near the door.

The black mutt bounded along beside them until he got an eyeful of the three of us outsiders. He galloped toward us, yipping in delight.

Liberty said, “Dave! Come here.”

The dog leaped joyously and bounded back to Liberty. That voice … then it dawned on me. “Oh my god, is that you, April?”

Liberty grinned a very non-mime grin. “Shay O'Hanlon, how are you?”

I'd met April and Mary McNichi a number of years earlier when they were first starting out as an act playing small dives in Minneapolis. They bailed six years back and headed to a warmer climate. They pair spent some time in Key West performing during the Sunset celebration and eventually settled in New Orleans a year after Katrina hit.

“And that's what we've been up to,” April finished as she rinsed the last of the gunk from her hair and face in a sink attached precariously to the wall. She vigorously rubbed at her now mostly green-free hair with a towel.

The rest of us had gathered around one of the tables. Mary had her chair balanced on its two back legs as she stroked Dave the Dog's head. I was waiting for her to tumble end over keister. She said, “Why are you guys running from those two goons? It was lucky Houdini,” she pointed at the magician still in the Dr. Seuss hat who sat slouched on a bar stool, “realized you three were running from something more than the calories in a beignet.”

Gabby said, “We simply moved up our little disappearing act a wee bit. It's the finale of the day.”

Baz asked, “Do all of you work together?”