Medusa (9 page)

At this, the man paused. I stepped into the room, shutting the door behind me. “You’re holding the gun, Corsack. I guess you can do the talking, too.”
 

Corsack looked down at the automatic in his hand with an expression that manifested something almost like embarrassment. How did that get there? The pistol remained aimed levelly at me, however.
 

“Forgive me, Mr. Longville. I pretended to leave message for you at the desk of each hotel along the strip until finally I reached this one. They are old-fashioned here, for the tourists. They still have the old type mailbox in lobby. At the other hotels, they refuse me. There is no one there by your name, they tell me. Here, the man at the desk took the message and placed it into the message slot for this room, 509. So I come here, I pick the lock, and await your return. I realize you might be angry, but that is chance I must take. This is why I have the gun, for which I apologize. I must compel you to listen. We are both mixed up in same business, most dangerous, with many dangerous people. I seek to find which side you are on in this matter.”
 

“Since you know my name, I suppose that you also know that I am a private investigator. Other than that, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m here on a case of my own. I really can’t imagine how it concerns you. Maybe if you told me something about why you are here, we could figure out if we are working on related cases.”
 

Corsack listened with interest, but shook his head slightly.
 

“I do not know this. That you are private investigator. Now, I see. What do you investigate, then?” The man’s eyes glittered darkly, and on his face was an inscrutable half-smile.
 

I shrugged. “I’m here to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. It’s tied to another case I had, about five years ago.”
 

Now Corsack was nodding vigorously. “Yes, now I see the connection.”
 

“Connection with what? You’re not making any sense, Corsack.”
 

“You think not? Perhaps, I do not, at the moment. But all will be made clear to you. There are many complexities, yes? Mysterious person called to let me know of your interest in certain matter. Person I do not know, merely voice on telephone. I come here to make sure we are on same side.” A strange smile split Corsack’s face, and he leaned a little closer to me.
 

“So, my friend, I ask you, have you not yet seen the Medusa?”
 

I stood there, blinking at this strange apparition, and began to suspect Tiller had been right, after all. Perhaps New Orleans was full of the insane. Maybe my hotel room had been invaded by a madman—a madman with a pistol, at that. But something told me that the man in the powder blue suit was deadly serious. The fact that he had also been tipped off by a phantom caller was interesting, too.
 

“Medusa? What are you talking about?”
 

There was a strange sparkle in Corsack’s eyes, like there was much to tell, but for some reason he was holding something back.
 

“You have not seen the coils of the snakes, then? Do not fear. I will make the details of my own work known to you. Now, my friend, I go. Tomorrow, I will call you here, around dark. I will leave instructions where to meet you and your policeman friend, and we will go see the Medusa. I think your answer lies there.”
 

Corsack rose and edged past me to the door.
 

“Just one thing, Corsack. The next time you point that pistol at me, you had better be prepared to use it.”
 

“My apologies, Mr. Longville. But as I say, fear not. We are on same side. You will see.”
 

Corsack went out the door, backed away, gun still in hand, then abruptly turned and sprinted down the hall. I was tempted to follow, but decided against it. I knew that I could run the man down, if I wanted to. But whatever his game was, he had said he would return, and I believed him. I decided to play it his way, for the time being.
 

I gave Corsack fifteen minutes to make good his escape, and then reopened the door and walked down the hall to Tiller’s room. I knocked on the door.
 

The door opened presently. Tiller looked out and his eyebrows furrowed.
 

“Thought you were putting it down for the night—I just walked in here myself.”
 

I shook my head. “I had a visitor. The man in the powder blue suit. He says his name’s Corsack.”
 

I told Tiller of my encounter with the strange man. Tiller listened with deepening color and immediately began sputtering when I finished the story.
 

“Damn it, Roland, you should have come and got me immediately. We could have tailed the guy!”
 

“No dice, Tiller. By the time I walked down here and got you mobilized, he would have been long gone, anyway. Besides, the entire purpose of his little visit was to prime us for his next appearance. He’s going to call us, and I believe he will. He says he’s got information for us. I believe that, too. I also believe that he’s got some additional purpose, something personal. How we tie into it is the mystery. He got a call that told him I was here. Ten to one it’s the same phantom caller that tipped me about Fain.”
 

“So, somebody is playing us all. They were able to drag us here, and give all of our information to Corsack. He knows who we are, and he knows why we’re here. Great. Somebody out there has way too many details for me to sleep easy tonight.”
 

I grimaced and nodded. “If Fain’s here—and we know he is—it could be bad. Word might get to him that we’re looking for him. He could disappear again, before we can find him. But I think someone’s trying to get us all together to take him down, not to warn him.”
 

“So just what is this Corsack character’s reason for coming back? Did he say?”
 

“He did. Seems that he wants to meet us somewhere. He said something about ‘The Medusa.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
 

“No, aside from the mythological lady with snakes for a wig. Could mean anything, but this being New Orleans, I’ll just bet you it ends up being something damned peculiar. This case just gets weirder and weirder. Everything about this town is oddball, and I got a feeling the longer you hang around, the weirder things get. I just hope the weird doesn’t rub off.”
 

I thought about my encounter with Sister LuDivine, and decided that maybe Tiller had something there. I tried to smile as I told him, “One thing’s for sure, Tiller old friend, whatever this guy Corsack’s about, weird or not, we’re certainly going to find out.”

Chapter 12

I went back to my room and shut the door. I needed to sleep, but my mind was racing. Who was this Corsack? How did he fit into the picture with Fain? He seemed like just the sort of marginal character that might have happened onto a man in hiding. Most of all, the identity of the mystery caller ate at me.
 

Someone out there was drawing together an alliance against Fain, and I had no idea who it could be, or why they would do such a thing.
 

I grabbed the remote and turned on the television. After a few moments I realized that I was watching a local newscaster mouthing words, with the sound muted. I changed the channel. Madonna was nude. She was pouring hot wax all over Willem DeFoe, who was also nude. I changed the channel again. Two burly men were holding a young man down while Malcolm McDowell committed sodomy on him.
 

I sighed. I didn’t feel sufficiently intellectual at the moment to grapple with such sublime cinematic achievements. I pointed the remote at the TV set like someone might point a gun at an intruder, and pulled the trigger. The set went dark. I lay in the darkness and let my mind swirl, until sleep eventually found me.
 

* * *

The next afternoon I received a call in my room. It was Corsack, who furtively whispered directions to a spot outside of New Orleans. I collected Tiller and the two of us drove out of town to the specified place. Once again, we found ourselves on a maze-like network of straight, flat, country roads, alike each other as corridors in a prison.
 

The name of the meeting place that Corsack gave me was The Blue Bayou, a backwoods bar. It was a shady lounge, out on the outskirts on New Orleans, which meant that it was situated on the water. Although that might have lent the place a certain mystique once upon a time, that mystique was as long-lost as the original coat of paint. The fishy smell of the backwater hung over the parking lot. The bayou that gave the place its name had degenerated into a small, polluted lagoon that sat stagnant next to a sagging pier.
 

Tiller made a face like he had indigestion as we got out of the car.
 

“What is it that you think’s so damn important in here? No man needs a beer this bad.”
 

We walked across a parking lot that was coated with a layer of large gray gravel instead of pavement, then up an unvarnished wooden ramp that led to the front door. The wood was sodden from many rains, and gave slightly under our feet, but I had to marvel to myself that at least the truly handicapped, as well as the merely alcohol impaired, could negotiate the ramp to partake of the dubious pleasures inside. Mosquitoes patrolled the parking lot in lethal squadrons, where they did a brisk business on the drink-addled loiterers.
 

“What a shit hole,” Tiller pronounced, and swatted at a mosquito that was buzzing his face.
 

As we entered the front door, Corsack paid the cover charge for the three of us to a hulking bouncer, a young man with too many tattoos and a pony tail, who affected a perpetually bored expression. He collected the money with pointed disinterest and waved us all inside.
 

“I bet this turns out to be a waste of time,” Tiller announced to anyone who might be listening.
 

“Oh, no, you see, my friend. Look over there.” Corsack pointed toward the far wall of the building, the interior of which was one large room.
 

Over there were a gaggle of naked and partially naked girls, loitering around two low, semicircular stages; to the rear was a room with a third, larger stage.
 

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Roland, the guy’s brought us to a friggin’ titty bar.”
 

I grabbed Corsack by the arm. “What in the hell are you thinking, Corsack? We don’t have time for this.”
 

“My friends, you must wait and see. Come, sit, and wait but for a moment. All will be made clear.”
 

“Can I shoot this guy?” Tiller asked me in a furtive whisper. I put his hand on his shoulder.
 

“Let’s see what he’s up to, first.”
 

Tiller smirked. “You got me into this, Longville. I’ll just take in the scenery, while your man, Corsack, here makes sense of it all.”
 

Corsack led us toward the rear of the place. Men all around were obviously waiting for the star attraction with the silent, half-asleep expectation that only a strip bar audience can conjure forth. They nursed their beers, ignored the girls who preened next to them, and stared expectantly toward the stage.
 

“And now,” Corsack whispered to both of us, as we took our seats in a booth in the back of the place, “both of you will see the Medusa.”
 

Tiller looked at me with an expression of abject horror. I wasn’t so sure that I didn’t feel that way myself, though I would have been at a loss to explain why.
 

The music started. It was music from a nightmare, a gruff voice speaking words carved right out of the living night: “We sail tonight for Singapore, we’re all as mad as hatters here . . .”
 

Tom Waits, I realized. I liked Tom Waits. I just didn’t like him here. As I was lamenting some of my favorite music being thus misused, the whole crowd gave a collective gasp. Suddenly, a goddess appeared before us, on the largest stage, which dominated the back of the place. She was clearly the main feature. She appeared as suddenly as a serpent’s tongue on the stage above and before us. She was a tall, incredibly beautiful woman, with olive skin under her midnight tan, looming like some Mediterranean goddess, clad only in a flimsy chamois. I had seen one other body that flawless, and its owner had been in the same profession. That girl was dead now.
 

The dead girl had been a stripper in Birmingham. This girl was stripper, too, but as I watched, it became clear that she was a stripper on a level beyond any I’d ever seen before. She seemed to look through everyone present with serpentine eyes that were the color of emeralds in the summer sun, eyes that gave forth a withering glare that I found himself at once wanting to both meet and avoid.
 

Then, her eyes glowered and changed. She undulated and quivered, and shook the sweat from her blameless body, and gazed malevolently across the audience, and then, blink, she fixed them all with a very different look, a look that seemed to tell every man present that he had a chance with her, a good chance, if they were just wild and dangerous enough. No one moved. I glanced sideways at Tiller, who sat quiet as a mouse, staring. I realized that except for Tom Waits’ guttural growl, the place was as silent as a church.