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Authors: Gred Herren

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“But Papa is always just so
mean.
”
“That's just how he is. He's like Storm. You don't think Storm's mean, do you?”
“Well, no. He's just annoying—on purpose.” Storm was the most horrible tease. Sometimes he drove me absolutely insane. At least he'd stopped calling me “my queen.” But he still called my psychic power my “psycho gift.”
“Well, Papa is the same way. That's how he shows affection. Is it how I'd prefer he be? No. I don't particularly like being quizzed on a regular basis about why I'm not pregnant, but hey.” She shrugged, turning onto Esplanade. “Now, do you need my help with rescuing Frank?”
She was so completely earnest that I had no doubt she would be willing to strap a dagger to her leg, and I had this mental image of her in a commando outfit. I couldn't help myself. It was all so absurd that my Uptown Mrs. Doctor sister was eager to help in a rescue mission that I started snorting with laughter.
“Don't laugh at me! I'm
serious.
” She punched me in the leg as she pulled over at the corner of Decatur and Esplanade.
“You have no idea how much I love you right now.” I leaned over and kissed her on the tip of her nose.
“You sure you don't need my help?” She frowned at me. “I never get to have any fun.”
She'd always said that when we were kids. I grinned back at her. “I know, it's not fair.”
She laughed then and gave me another hug. “Oh, Scotty, don't you remember?” She pointed her index finger at me and did a dead-on impersonation of Faye Dunaway in
Mommie Dearest:
“Ah, but nobody ever said life was fair, Tina.”
That made me laugh, and she laughed with me. She reached over and wiped the tears off my cheeks before planting a big, wet, sloppy, slurpy, noisy kiss on me. “I love you, little bro.”
“I love you, Rain.”
She twisted her face into her best grimace and rolled her eyes. “Even now you can't call me
Rhonda?
What does it take in this family to get a little respect anyway?”
“I will
never
call you that.” I grinned back at her. “Rain was the little girl who always pulled me out from in front of cars.”
She gave me a long look, her eyes shiny with fresh tears, before blowing me a kiss. “Frank's going to be fine.” And then I got out of the car.
I watched her negotiate the U-turn at Frenchmen and waved as she drove past. I kept watching—and waving—until the trees shielded the Range Rover from my sight. I took a deep breath and started walking up the sidewalk to my front door.
I've got to find Frank,
I thought, and felt the tension starting to build again. I started looking around for Sasha on the street. He wasn't in front of my gate. Maybe he'd gone into the coffee shop to get warm; it was still a bit damp and chilly.
I glanced across the street and my blood ran a little colder.
The guy who'd been watching the house was there again.
I stopped dead in my tracks and took a better look.
I wasn't sure if it was the same guy. They seemed to be of the same size, and the outfit was similar—baseball cap pulled down low to mask the top of the face, a grayish trench coat with the collar turned up, jeans and athletic shoes beneath. If it wasn't the same guy, it was two guys with the same sense of style, at the very least. The street wasn't as crowded as yesterday; some brave souls had ventured out from cover since the rain had stopped, although the sky was completely hidden by clouds running every shade of color between gray and black. I didn't know if he was watching for me, per se, but if Frank had been kidnapped, they might have tracked him back here. They might be looking for the rest of us, if they didn't have Colin. I casually pulled out my cell phone and dialed Colin again. Nothing. My heart was racing.
It wouldn't be too hard to track us down; we were all three listed in the phone book with our addresses there for anyone to find. Even if he wasn't watching for me, I didn't like the looks of this. It was definitely not a good sign.
I waited for a crowd of tourists to walk across Esplanade and then fell into step alongside them as they headed up Decatur. They were jabbering and chatting away and didn't notice me on their outer edge. My mind was working. The guy who'd watched the house before had reminded me of Frank. Frank had been a government agent. The plot of every single spy movie I'd ever seen rushed through my head. Maybe Frank had information on someone or something that made him dangerous from his days with the FBI. Frank never talked about his days with the FBI; his cases, the people he worked with, what kind of inside information he'd been privy to that certain people in the government might not want to be public knowledge. My imagination was certainly not helped by the mistrust my parents had sown into me my entire life about the Big Brother in Washington, watching and monitoring our every move. When we reached the door to the coffee shop, I ducked inside, worked up to a fine emotional turmoil of terror and paranoia.
And I wasn't even stoned.
Nor was Sasha inside the coffee shop. Where the hell was he?
I walked over to the counter and casually ordered an iced mocha from a clerk I didn't recognize. I gave her a good hard, long look. She was maybe twenty and everything about her screamed poor college student working her way through college—the dreadlocks dyed blue and scarlet, the exposed pierced navel, the row of posts running up the outer lobes of her ears, and the surly attitude. I kept watching her—the paranoia again—but finally decided she was exactly what she seemed. She was also pretty efficient at quickly making an iced mocha. Darcy, the usual daytime girl, was actually pretty slow, which sometimes was annoying if I was in a rush. I paid her, threw a dollar in the tips jar, took my drink, and headed to the hallway to the courtyard. I unlocked the door and slipped through, pulling it shut and locking it again.
It's nice,
I thought,
having a secret entrance into the house.
I took a deep breath and felt relief flood through me. Once inside, of course, the paranoia left, like it was never there, and I felt kind of silly.
But the guy is watching the house. Again. You didn't imagine that, Scotty.
Velma was sitting at the table, sparking a fat joint. She gave me a big grin and waved me over.
I glanced at the stairs and thought about just waving and heading up, but Sasha wasn't anywhere to be seen, and there was nothing to do but sit there and wait for him. Besides, my aunts Millie and Velma aren't the kind of women you can just ignore. They're not really my aunts; they're lifelong friends of my mother's, and a long-term lesbian couple. They've been together longer than most straight couples I know. Velma was more than capable of getting pissed if I blew her off and storming up the stairs behind me. She once beaned Frank with a frying pan, something she now regrets terribly, but he's never really been comfortable around her ever since. In her defense, he was holding a gun on me at the time, but still.... His head ached for days. So, if Frank had just escaped from abductors, the last thing he needed was for Velma to come storming into the apartment. Besides, she was not, despite my age, beyond grabbing me by the ear and twisting. Not to mention the great deal she and Millie had given me on the rent.
Basically, I'm pretty much their bitch.
I walked over and she offered the joint. I shook my head. I could still remember the self-induced paranoia; the last thing I needed was to enhance it with marijuana. “No thanks, Aunty.”
She shrugged and took another long hit. “Your loss, buddy. This is some primo shit.”
“Where's Millie?” It
was
some strong stuff; I could tell by the smell of the smoke. I looked at it longingly, then at the stairs, then back at her.
No, Scotty, it's not a good idea,
I told myself.
Be strong.
She gestured upstairs and then the smoke exploded out of her in a racking cough that doubled her over. She kept coughing for a few seconds more before finally straightening up, her eyes red and watering, and said, “Whew,” as she reached for her bottled water. “She's up there with some of her lawyer buddies—you know, the power dykes.” She winked at me. “There's only so much of that talk I can stand. Where've you been?”
“At Maman's,” I said. It wasn't a lie; it
was
the last place I'd been. No sense in telling her what was going on, I figured. She'd tell Millie—Millie is a lawyer in the sharkiest sense of the word; she's Storm's role model—and I'd have to deal with that. Like I said, they aren't the kind of women you can just trifle with. They'd want to help somehow, and if I was even able to convince them there was nothing they could do, they'd both worry themselves sick. Or drive each other crazy.
“Why're you coming in through the coffee shop?” She narrowed her eyes a bit.
“Because the walkway roof drips,” I said, without even having to think. It does, badly. During a storm you have to keep your umbrella up or risk getting soaked. You'd think when the house had to be rebuilt, they'd have replaced that roof. Sometimes I think they didn't because they enjoy listening to me bitch about it. I know it's caused them amusement on more than one occasion to see me get soaked.
She rolled her eyes. “It wouldn't have anything to do with the guy watching the house?”
“You know about that?”
She sighed. “Listen, pal, your aunt and I aren't stupid people. And after what happened with the arson last summer”—that was when the house burned down—“we keep a close eye on what's going on in the street. I don't want to be uprooted again. Sooo, what's going on?”
I looked at her and then sat down with a sigh. “It's real complicated. Let's just say two people are dead, I don't know where Colin is, we think it might be the Russian Mob, and Frank—well, Frank is missing. I think the Russians might have him. I have no idea who the guy outside is.”
“You want me to get my frying pan?” Her eyes gleamed.
What is it with these women?
I wondered. “No, I don't think so. And the bad thing is, the guy who told me the Russians have Frank was supposed to meet me here, and he's nowhere to be found.”
She got a weird, guilty look. “Um, there's a guy in your apartment. Hot, all huge and muscular. I figured there was a story. . . .”
I kissed her on the cheek; said, “Save me some of that stuff ”; and ran upstairs. I got progressively wobblier as I climbed, finally having to grab hold of the rail tightly. My hands were shaking so hard I could barely fit the key in the lock, but finally the door opened and I ran down the hall to the living room. I could hear the television on. “Sasha?” I shouted.
He was sitting on the couch, slouched down in his jeans and a tank top I recognized as one of my dad's—and it was waaaay too small for him. His face lit up when he saw me. He flicked off the television with the remote, jumped up, and came bounding over to me. He threw his arms around me, practically squeezing the breath out of me in the process. He picked me up off the ground and kept holding—until I finally was able to squeeze my hands in against his chest and push lightly. He didn't let go, so I pushed harder. Finally, I had to say, “Sasha, I—can't—breathe.”
“So sorry!” He set me down. “So glad to see Scotty!”
“Yeah, so I gather.” I gave him a weak smile. “How'd you get in here? And where's Frank?” As I stared into his face, it dawned on me that he didn't know Misha was dead, and my entire body sagged. Someone was going to have to tell him, and I had this horrible feeling it was going to have to be me. It was just a bit too much for me. He grabbed me before I could fall and propped me up.
“Parents gave spare key.” His ice blue–gray eyes examined me carefully. “Scotty all right?”
“I'm fine.” He let go of me and I looked at him. “And Frank? Where's Frank?”
“I know where Frank is.” He gave me a big smile. “Now we have to go get.” He nodded his head happily. “Be easy—what you call piece of cake?”
“Piece of cake,” I said, nodding.
And everything went spinning and gray.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ten of Wands
one who is carrying an oppressive load
 
 
 
“You must pray for a brave heart.”
I heard the Goddess's soft, gentle voice through the fog as I drifted downward. The light sound of her voice seemed to wrap around me as I floated down, the gray mist swirling around me but nevertheless caressing my skin, as though slowing me as I moved ever downward. Down below me I heard a marching band's drums being pounded, the blast of the tubas, and the cheers and shouts of a crowd. It was a night parade, and through the mist I could see the flickering torches of the flambeaux carriers. Even though I was drifting, weightless, I felt calm and at peace. My worries and stresses had been taken from me. My body no longer felt sore and tired and exhausted. My feet landed on something solid. Now I could just barely make out the shapes and sounds of people shouting at the riders on a float, and the throws were flying. A string of green, gold, and purple beads landed at my feet, with a medallion attached. I bent down and picked them up off the damp ground, and the medallion leered at me. It was a harlequin's face, all white with a green and purple cap with gold trim. There was a heart-shaped mole on one of its cheeks, and the bright red lips were pulled back in a leering grimace. Around the edge of the medallion, rather than the name of a krewe, were the words
MARDI GRAS MAMBO.
I
turned it over and over again in my hands.
And the voice came again through the mist.
“You must pray for a brave heart.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, looking around me. I never saw her, no matter how close I could sense her presence at times—yet I always tried, squinting my eyes and peering through the damp, cool air. I know intellectually that she is ethereal, that she doesn't have to take shape, probably only takes shape when the human she is speaking to cannot understand or comprehend her unless she is in human form, but I still look. “I don't really understand. You say it to me all the time but I never really know what it means.” I sounded like a pouty child not getting his way, but I couldn't help myself. She'd thrown quite a few curveballs at me in the last couple of days, and without meaning any disrespect, I kind of wanted some straight answers from her.
I mean, what's the point of being able to communicate with the Universe if its meaning doesn't make sense to you?
“You will understand when the time is right. It means what it means. Pray for a brave heart,” she said, her words like the wind around me.
“But that doesn't help me—and that doesn't help me find Frank!!” I kicked at the ground angrily, clutching the medallion in my hands.
“Frank is fine for now. You will do what needs to be done.”
I stood there, the medallion in my hand. So many questions, so many possible answers—I didn't even have the slightest idea of where to start, where to begin. I turned it over in my hand. It was heavier than plastic, and I brought it closer to my eyes. It was made of metal, not plastic. I'd never seen anything like it.
“Life is testing you, Scotty. Nothing comes to you that you cannot handle. It is
how
you handle what life presents you that matters.”
“That's a load of crap!” I shouted, waving my arms to try to part the mist, make it go away so I could see better. “I don't want to be tested!”
“The only choice is how to handle what life presents to you.” Her voice was fading now, she was going back to wherever it was she went, and I would be returning to my plane. The medallion burned in my hands, and I dropped it, and the ground beneath me began to dematerialize, and I began to fall again, slowly, the mist wrapping itself around me, and as the mist and the grayness began to give way to light again, I could hear her words echoing in the distance.
Pray for a brave heart. . . .
 
“Scotty?” I looked up into Velma's gray eyes. Her face was concerned at first, but then as my eyes began to focus better, it dissolved into a huge grin. “Just another trance, then. Thank God.” She stood up with an enormous sigh of relief. “I swear you scare the shit out of me sometimes.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked, trying to sit up, but I got dizzy and collapsed back onto the back cushions of the couch. Well, at least I was sitting up. The room wasn't spinning or anything, and everything was slowly coming back into focus. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sasha come back into the room, a soaked paper towel in one hand, folded tightly into a pad. His face also lit up with a smile and what looked like relief. He sat down on the sofa.
“This one came out on the balcony and yelled for help.” Velma looked into my eyes. “No, you seem fine.” She looked over at Sasha, then back to me with a wink.
“Oh, my God! Sasha, where's Frank? We've got to go get him.” I tried to get up but got dizzy again.
Velma shot a glance over at Sasha and then looked me in the eyes. “I don't think you should be going anywhere for a while, young man. You just passed out—”
“Oh, for Pete's sake, it was just a trance. I was talking to the Goddess. It happens all the time—”
“Why don't you try calling Colin again?” she suggested.
I glared at her but tried again. I flipped the phone closed when the voice mail picked up. But then an idea came to me. I could use some help....
I walked over to my desk and got Angela Blackledge's business card out of the top drawer. Colin had given it to me when we'd opened the office, with strict instructions never to call her unless he was unavailable and it was an emergency.
I think this definitely qualified as an emergency.
I called. It rang twice, and then a disembodied voice came on the line:
“We are sorry, but the number you are calling is no longer in service. Please check the number and try again.”
What the fuck?
I tried again, with the same result. I handed the phone to Velma with the card. “You try.”
She dialed, then held up the phone so I could hear the message again.
I sat down hard in my desk chair. Had the whole world gone completely insane?
There had to be some rational explanation. Maybe Angela had just had her phone number changed. But why didn't I have the new number?
Sasha walked over to me and put his big hands on my shoulders. “Is going to be okay, Scotty. Did you see Misha?”
And then, as I looked up into his face, his bright eyes, the smile on his face, I realized that I wasn't the only person with problems. “Oh, Sasha,” I whispered, and I started crying. “I'm so so sorry.”
His entire body went rigid and he stood up completely straight. He bit his lower lip. “Misha dead?”
He stood there, not moving. His shoulders didn't shake. He was completely silent. But tears flowed out of his eyes.
Somehow, this silent, unmoving grief was the saddest thing I'd ever seen.
I stood up and threw my arms around him. He grabbed on to me, and I braced myself for the rib crushing that was to come. But he held me loosely, and he still didn't shake—nothing. The only way I knew he was crying was from his breathing.
Finally, he let go of me and stepped back.
“Sasha, what exactly happened in Russia?” I asked gently. “You didn't tell us everything last night, did you?”
Sasha nodded but didn't say anything. He reached up and wiped the tears off his expressionless face. He walked back into the living room and sat down on the sofa. Velma and I followed, and we sat down on either side of him, taking his hands.
Looking straight ahead, Sasha said, “Kafelnikov is very bad man, Scotty. He tied to Chechnyan rebels—and Middle Eastern terrorism. And he trying to move operation out of Russia and into United States . . . which big problem for your country.” Sasha tilted his head up and looked at me. “I was approached by an American agent, yes.” His English was no longer broken. I stared at him. He sounded exactly like Misha had. The accent was barely discernible. But then, the facial resemblance was so uncanny; they all three had looked so much alike.
“They wanted me to take Pasha's place with Kafelnikov,” he went on, shaking his head. “I owed it to Pasha. You don't understand. Pasha wasn't a bad person.”
“What!?”
I exploded. I stared at him. “Our government asked you to take his place? But that's not
right.
” In the back of my head I could hear my mother tsking. “The government isn't supposed to do a lot of things, Scotty,” she was saying inside my head, “but that doesn't mean they don't do it. That's why we always have to be vigilant.”
“They promised me to bring Pasha to America and get him off drugs,” Sasha continued. “They trained me for weeks—very intensive training on self-defense and weaponry and so forth. I already was proficient from my days with the Russian army, but they trained me well, and they didn't want to take any chances. The only problem was Kafelnikov—he was an animal. He couldn't get enough of Pasha.” He shuddered. “I put him off as long as I could. Repulsive as I found him, somehow I managed to do it. For Pasha. They smuggled Pasha into America—Houston—and put him in a drug hospital, and I took his place.” He closed his eyes. “Viktor was a monster.” He shuddered again. “It was horrible, the things he liked to do. He liked to—no, I don't want to say.” He looked at me. “I don't want anyone to ever know.” His eyes were pleading.
More secrets, more lies.
“There's more, isn't there?” I asked, although I didn't really want to know.
“No.” Tears again silently began to leak from his eyes. He looked at me, pleading.
“Tell me,” I insisted softly.
“I”—he swallowed—“Pasha was never”—he tapped the side of his head—“he was never
smart.
He was a simple boy, really sweet and kind. But the drugs
changed
him. He didn't care about anything anymore. He was more than Viktor's lover.”
“He was part of it, wasn't he?”
Sasha nodded. “You have to understand—it was all my fault; I had to save him. . . .” He started to sob. “Pasha was not a monster. He was such a sweet little boy. Sasha and I always had to watch out for him.”
“Sasha?” I let go of his hand. “
You and Sasha had to look out for him?”
I stared at him. My head was starting to hurt again.
He stared at me, and then his jaw clenched.
“You're Misha, aren't you?” I couldn't help myself, the absurdity of it all was too much for me. I started laughing, but then I started crying too. “So, why are you still alive?”
“What the
fuck
is going on around here?” Velma held up her hands. “I'm not following this.”
“You do need a scorecard,” I sighed, wiping my face. “Okay, let me see if I have it right, okay? Correct me if I'm wrong.” I started ticking things off on my fingers. “Papa Diderot had an affair with your mother and got her pregnant. She went back to Russia without telling him she was pregnant. She gave birth to identical triplets—Pasha, Sasha, and Misha. After she died, Misha wrote to Papa Diderot for help. By this time, Pasha had gotten mixed up with drugs, porn, and a really bad Russian gangster. American agents approached Sasha about getting Pasha to turn on the gangster Viktor Kafelnikov.”
Sasha—
Misha—
nodded.
“Okay, then Maman Diderot responded to your letter. She came to Europe with her best friend, Sylvia Overton, who then fell in love with you and you two were married. You came to the United States, and then the American agents swapped Pasha out for Sasha and brought him to the States and put him in rehab. When Pasha got out of rehab, he came to New Orleans and started dealing drugs—I'm assuming Pasha was the one I bought my X from?” He nodded again. “So, when did Sasha get here?”
Velma still looked confused.
“His cover was blown a couple of weeks ago,” Misha said, “so they brought him here.”
“Well, our government did a really shitty job of hiding you all,” I replied. “And how did Pasha find
me?
Was that a setup?”
“No, just blind luck. . . .” He ran a hand over his cropped hair. “I knew there was a nephew who lived in the Quarter—a dancer boy. Your grandmother had shown me pictures of you. I saw you leaving Pasha's once. I couldn't believe he was selling drugs to his own nephew.” He shook his head.
“Oh, I left out the part, Velma, where Mom found out about them and wrote to them. Did you look them up?”
“I looked them up.” He sighed. “It wasn't hard to find them. Douglas and Cecile, very welcoming and nice, but they told me not to tell you, so I didn't. Cecile said when the time was right everyone would know, but she didn't think your grandmother was ready.”

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