NO Quarter (38 page)

* * *

I sidled up on the crowd coming out of the bar, mingling myself reasonably well with the riffraff. The Bear stood in the doorway waving everybody out urgently. “Com’on! Com’on! It’s a gas leak! There’s nothin’ I can do about it! Sorry, all right? Go do your drinkin’ somewhere else for a while.
Put that fuckin’ cigarette out!
What’s the matter with you, Bernie?”

“I left my address book in there,” I said. I kept my face down, my posture a bit stooped, going through the crowd up to the Bear. A casual glance wouldn’t catch me.

He hooked a thumb over his shoulder without looking at me. “Go get it. Com’on, y’all! Yeah, of course I’m gonna call somebody to come fix it. Soon as I get all you people out!”

I ducked through the door, still hunched. I was breathing a little hard from the fast jog.

Inside the bar as the last of the dozen or so patrons emptied out, I moved quickly. I did a fast check on both rest rooms, and found both unoccupied. Then I took position by the door, dropping money into the jukebox but making no selections. It was hugely unlikely anybody would realize I was still in here, or even remember me being on the scene.

The Bear had concocted the scheme for emptying the place out, and I had to admit it was a beaut. See, this bar is
notorious
for gas leaks. It’s got an ancient heating system that the owner, who lives across the river in Gretna, refuses to tear out and replace. So it gets patched here and there and springs new holes at least a few times a year, even in summer when, naturally, the heat’s not on. What’s more, tonight’s gas leak was completely authentic. I could smell it on the air. The Bear had rigged up a deal where he need only press down on a
sturdy wrench he had wedged next to a pipe by the floor behind the bar, out of everybody’s view. When I had phoned, he had stepped down on the wrench with his boot, and presto! Instant gas leak.

I could hear him dispersing everybody from out front. It was a Monday night, not too many people out. They quickly scattered to Decatur’s other available haunts. The Bear stood guard in front of the bar’s entrance, shooing away customers.

I preset all but the last button in a series of selections on the juke, found a good vantage point beside the door, and waited.

I looked back down the length of
Dauphine, waiting for the tell-tale bulk that
would be Juggernaut to make the corner. I was three blocks down, and dare not go farther less he miss me—though how anyone could miss my garish shirt, even in pitch black, was unfathomable. I had not expected to be involved in a chase with a killer, but now that I was, my adrenaline pumped. Funny how the fear of dying can make you feel really alive.

After Maestro had left, Alex and I had just sat on the couch, comfortable with each other’s silence. I held Alex, enjoying her soft warmth and thinking about what Maestro had said. He’d lost the Juggernaut. After watching Jugger’s earlier performance, I wasn’t thrilled with the thought of that monster running around loose out there, especially knowing that he wanted a piece of me. I wasn’t particularly worried about our safety inside the apartment, but it did bother me that Maestro had managed to loose track of him. Was Maestro losing it? Had he been retired from the Outfit too long after all? Lost his edge? I didn’t want to believe that. I had pinned a lot on his knowledge and experience, wanted to believe he would manage to find Jugger again. I just hoped he wasn’t foolish or stubborn enough to take him on by himself.

I got up and walked into the movie room, where Sunshine’s drawing hung on the wall. Alex stood behind me, holding me, head resting between my shoulder blades, just like we’d stood there that last time
...
the night of my sleepwalking dream about Sunshine.

“It’s almost done,” she said, and all the edges were showing in her voice, too. That was okay, even a good thing. “We did the right thing. Maestro will get him.”

The red thumbtack hung loosely in the lower left corner. I pushed it back in, but it dropped to the floor in a tiny sprinkle of white wall plaster, bouncing behind a messy stack of videotapes.

I folded Alex into my arms. I was almost ready to blow off Maestro’s instructions, to send Alex up to her own apartment with the shotgun and go out looking on my own, when the phone rang. Maestro had found Jugger, but he needed my help to bring him to ground. He outlined his plan.

“It will be dangerous. You’ll have to stay well ahead of him while making sure you don’t completely lose him.”

“No problem. I know just the thing.”

Five minutes later, after I’d persuaded Alex to go upstairs—she’d promised to do so, and I didn’t doubt her—I stepped out of my gate onto Burgundy. I’d dressed in comfortable jeans and an obnoxiously loud shirt Sunshine had bought me as a joke Christmas gift back in San Francisco. It was one of those awful shirts tourists wear on tropic vacations to show they can compete with the local flora. I had kept it only because I’d intended to donate it to the local homeless shelter, but I’d never quite gotten around to delivering it. The mission required me to be the prey in a cat and mouse game, but I had no intention of getting too close to this particular cat. This shirt, with its day-glow bright flowers, made me visible from space, much less from a few blocks away in the Quarter.

I made the extra block to St. Louis, so I could come up on the bar without being spotted, turned on Chartres and ducked into Keuffer’s, kitty-cornered from the Stage Door. From there I could see Jugger and Maestro at the pool table. The Juggernaut’s attention seemed riveted on the game. Once I was certain Jugger had his back to me, I hurried across the street and stepped up to the bar. Maestro made eye contact and nodded, never breaking the motion of his shot. I signaled the bartender, some guy I didn’t know.

“Can you tell me the way to Canal Street?”

“Sure, just head up that way on Chartres five blocks or so. You’ll come to Canal.”

“Thanks.” I glanced at Juggernaut to make sure he hadn’t spotted me—Maestro still had his full attention—then headed down Chartres toward Canal at a rapid pace. It being Monday, there weren’t a lot of people out, so I figured I could get a fairly good head start and still be seen by someone looking for me.

I made Canal and turned away from the river, then slid back over to the corner and peeked around the building. Jugger wasn’t too hard to spot amid all the normal-sized pedestrians. He was several blocks back, close enough to have seen which way I turned, but far enough back so I was safe. I headed over to Dauphine, but Jugger had still not made the corner at Canal, so I pretended to look in the window of the GNC on the corner.

I wanted a cigarette, but didn’t think I had that much time. A moment later, I spotted him coming around the building at Chartres. After a second more to be sure, I turned on Dauphine and headed back into the Quarter. Hated to admit it, but I was having fun—so long as I didn’t slip up and let him actually
catch me. Whatever difficulty I might have with this chase, bad smoker’s lungs and all, I was fairly certain it would be worse for someone the Juggernaut’s size.

I kept the chase going for about twenty minutes—ten shy of the amount of time Maestro said he needed—then ducked over to Decatur and turned toward the Marigny. I stayed under the streetlights as much as possible, to make certain Jugger could see me from a long way back, and picked up the pace. In short order, I found myself hurrying past my restaurant. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the big windows and beyond them saw the dance going on between the waiters and the feeders. The reflected face didn’t look familiar, and the scene behind the windows looked improbably alien to me, like a ritual viewed through a museum exhibit’s glass. For that instant I felt, keenly, like I didn’t belong in there, had
never
belonged to that world.

I’d built up a considerable lead by the time I reached the Bear’s bar. Glancing back, I spotted a shape that could only be the Juggernaut about three minutes behind. I made sure he saw me, then nodded to the Bear and ducked inside.

The place was so dim that at first that I couldn’t see anything beyond the lights over the bar. The sound system played something soft and low. The jukebox
was lit up as if it had been slotted with quarters and primed with selections, but it played nothing.

“How far back?” Maestro’s voice came from behind me, by the door. I had completely missed him.

“Two to three minutes, I’d guess.” I finally spotted him at a booth, sitting in the shadows just to the side of the door. He sat with his hands folded in front of him on the table. There was something odd about them, though, something different.
Oh
, I thought.
Surgical gloves
.

“There’s a back exit through the storeroom behind the bar,” he said. “Duck out there. I’ll take it from here.” His voice was calm and sure, but it, too was oddly different. Flat. Emotionless.

I’d thought long and hard about this moment, ever since Maestro had called to ask me to play a part in the final chase. The original plan had called for each of us to focus on our “own” suspect. But things had definitely not gone according to the plan. Now that I was involved, I realized I needed something more.

Something for Sunshine.

Instead of heading toward the storeroom, I turned to face him. “No, Maestro,” I said. “I’ll be staying.”

“You’ll be
what
?” His voice dropped even lower. The tone I heard in it gave me a chill. But I knew what I wanted, and after what we’d already been through, I wasn’t going to back down now.

“I’m staying,” I said. “I want to talk to him, first.”

“You’re out of your fucking mind!” I could hear the anger coming through now. “He’s already killed Dunk! He left him lying in the street, two holes in his heart. Do you understand this is not a game?”

A cold calm filled me—a fine, icy grip. Soothing, in its way, and far removed from sadness and grief and anger.

I didn’t want to fight Maestro over this, but I was not going to back down.

“How can you ask me that?” I said. “Sunshine was my
wife
. Jugger killed her. I have to face him. That’s what this has been about, all along—not just revenge, but
justice
.” Without waiting for what he might say to that, I walked over to the bar and climbed up to sit on it, settling myself under the brightest light to be sure I would be the first thing Jugger saw. And the last thing. “You’ll want him distracted. Let me talk to him. Then do what you want. If we’re partners, you owe me this.”

Something shifted behind Maestro’s eyes. My final words had hit the right target, had clinched something between us. They’d been meant to.

“Hey, brother-man,” the Bear’s voice came from just outside. It was the signal.

“Hey,” the Juggernaut returned the Bear’s greeting, then pushed open the door, and entered.

He stepped into the dim light and stopped, spotting me immediately. He was obviously surprised to find me alone and waiting for him. “What the
hell
?”

“You must be the Juggernaut,” I said. My voice was surprisingly calm and strong. “Well, I’m Bone. I hear you’ve been looking for me. Why?”

He hadn’t expected a conversation, but he recovered from his surprise quick enough. “You got something I want,” he said. “You stol’ that picture from Dunk. Want it back, an’ maybe want to teach you a lesson about messin’ in my business, boyo.” He took a threatening step forward, then stopped. I saw Maestro twitch, then grow still. He was giving me my time.

“Yeah,” I said. “You killed the woman who drew that picture. You remember Sunshine? Or maybe you never even knew her name. Well, she was once my wife.”

“She was a
whore
!” Jugger spat on the floor and took another stomping step towards me. “A whore who tried to steal my bitch. Nobody fuckin’ steals
my bitch! She got what was comin’ to her. I hexed her good, too, made sure she got a bad death and a bad time in the afterworld.

“And Dunk?” I held my place, kept my voice perfectly calm but hard as stone, as Maestro began to move again. I watched as he came up out of the booth with no more weight or presence or sound than a shadow. I didn’t so much see him as I felt him glide up behind Jugger. “What about Dunk? You killed him. Now you’ve got no
...
bitch.” I found the ugliness of the word, the way that Jugger used it, staggering and foul. I leaned forward, just a degree or two, and looked right into Jugger’s mad eyes. “Are you really surprised that Dunk preferred Sunshine to you?”

“You
...
mother-fuckin’
...
” Jugger choked out, then he roared. It was a primal sound, like the yowl of a big predator. He drew a large, wickedly pointed weapon, not an ice pick unless it was on steroids, from a pocket hidden somewhere in the expanse of his overalls.

Tripwire
...

I froze as he lunged for me,
fast
.
Christ
, was he fast, like a moving wall, and he held his steel pointed directly at my heart. I’d wanted to confont him, to make him face what he had done. I’d known he might attack, but I had not been completely prepared for the reality of it. It was like what facing a bull in the
corrida
must be like for a matador. Death came for me on huge, stomping boots, and I couldn’t move, couldn’t think. I could only watch.

And the thought that came to me then, in that shattered fragment of time in which death rushed toward me, was that it had been worth it to face him. It had been essential. I hadn’t said the words for him. I hadn’t said them for myself. I had said them for Sunshine.

And then, before that terrible, lightning-fast lunge could puncture my heart, Maestro was on him, sailing in from his right like a viper striking its prey, slicing his neck with a shining razor of a knife.

Maestro’s steel bit into Jugger’s thick neck, slid through in a flash, and left a sudden red line behind it. The line widened instantly. Blood gushed with dismaying force from the wound, spraying everywhere in a shocking scarlet plume. Blood like that, a river, a waterfall of blood, belonged in a Sam Peckinpah film, not in this quiet bar in the Quarter.

But this was no movie.

Maestro pivoted out of the move like a ballet dancer in the midst of some
danse macabre
, releasing the dripping razor to clatter on the floor. The lighting was dim, but not so dim that I couldn’t see faces. The Juggernaut’s eyes got wide. He clapped his hands over the sudden, gaping wound in his neck, and spun to look at Maestro. As he recognized his attacker, his eyes bulged even wider, like
they were going to pop out of his skull. His mouth worked, but nothing came out other than obscene gurgling and whistling sounds.