Robert Asprin's Dragons Run (29 page)

“We have had a small discussion regarding tactics and strategy for the coming campaign. Representative Dunbar and I have reached an understanding. Representative?”

Penny held her back very straight but nodded sharp agreement.

“It would seem that there are some matters that need rectifying. First, Ms. Dunbar has some things to say.”

She came over and took Griffen’s hands in both of hers.

“Griffen, I am very sorry if anything I have done has caused you any trouble at all. You have been a genuine pillar of strength for me. You’ve been just so good to come out whenever I’ve needed you. I hope you understand that anything out of turn that I might have said is because I have been under so much pressure. I need to handle it better. Thank you for your patience and good sense.”

Griffen raised his eyebrows. Whatever had been said behind the closed door had knocked a little humility into her. She squeezed his hands before releasing them and turned to Fox Lisa.

“Sweetie, I haven’t been as nice to you as you deserve. I appreciate your being so protective and sticking by me all this time. You have been a real shining light to this campaign, and don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

Fox Lisa was touched.

“Oh, Penny, thank you! You know I’d do anything I can to help you. I believe in you.”

“That’s so kind of you,” Penny said. “Now, there’s no need to stay with me overnight anymore. I’m sure I’ll be all right.”

“But what about the attacks?”

“There have been no attacks,” Malcolm said.

“What?” Griffen demanded. “What about the garbage truck?”

He glared at Penny. She smiled at him sweetly.

“Well, honey, I just have to confess. It was me.”

“You did that?”

Penny looked a little sheepish, but she continued to meet his eyes.

“Well, yes. I, uh, convinced the driver to be there at that time, driving the truck he takes out every day.”

“That dance you did? Like during the debate?”

“Yes. It’s a voodoo thing. You wouldn’t understand. He had to obey my bidding. He did it a little too well, though. He wasn’t supposed to hit us. I don’t know how he fell out of the cab. But I did make sure he was all right. He got Workman’s Compensation for the accident.”

Griffen felt his temper rise.

“You could have killed Fox Lisa!”

Penny waved a hand. “She was fine. I knew how good she was behind the wheel. We did an off-road run for charity last year, and she flattened the competition.”

Fox Lisa looked embarrassed but proud. “That’s true. We came in a flat sixteen seconds before the competition. We drove Penny’s Jeep. About three-quarters of the way through the race, we jumped through a hedge that no one else would try.”

Griffen raised an eyebrow at her.

“Made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It cut a hundred yards off the course.”

Malcolm cleared his throat sharply.

“To return to the matter at hand . . . ? The accident was not part of the attacks that concern you.”

“No,” Penny acknowledged.

“That zombie at the debate?” Griffen asked. “Have you seen him before?”

“There’ve been several others, not just him,” Penny said. “I’m terrified of dead people!”

“But they are just people,” Griffen said. “Only . . . not alive . . . exactly. I’ve seen you on television at murder scenes, sometimes looking right at the corpse. What’s different about these, uh, people?”

“I’m afraid that someone’s cursing me. I know those zombies will get me soon. When I dance, I stand in two worlds at once. I’m vulnerable.” She swallowed. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Griffen thought of the nights sitting up with Gris-gris and feeling surrounded by an invisible underworld.

“Maybe I would.”

“No wonder you were freaked-out!” Fox Lisa said, her large eyes sympathetic.

“That is something that will have to be handled with a meeting,” Malcolm said. “Since the gentleman who set those up failed to respond to you, Griffen, in spite of your local connections, then I believe it falls to me to make arrangements. In the meanwhile, we have devised a manner to raise both awareness and capital for the campaign.”

“What?” Fox Lisa asked eagerly.

Malcolm turned to Griffen.

“Relying on the greatest talents around us, I believe that the most money can be obtained through organizing a poker tournament.”

“Wait a minute!” Griffen protested.

“That’s a terrific idea!” Fox Lisa said.

“Oh, no,” Griffen said, backing away with his hands up. He had a sudden vision of a roomful of angry card players all clamoring for his attention, money, or blood. “Not a chance. I’m having trouble making ends meet with my own business. Sorry. I have already had regular customers refuse to play with me because I’m tainted by my involvement with Penny even though I’m not working for her. I’m done organizing things for other people. I have responsibilities. I need to make a living, and I have employees who rely on me for a paycheck.”

“We can’t argue with that,” Malcolm said, stroking his chin. “That was our agreement.”

Penny grasped his arm.

“No! I need you, Griffen.”

“Sorry,” Griffen said. “No poker tournament. Talk to the casinos if you want to do something like that.”

“No,” Malcolm said. “They will demand too large a portion of the proceeds.”

“How about pool?” Fox Lisa piped up. “Penny’s really good. She could do an exhibition.”

“No one would pay to see that,” Griffen said. “No offense, Penny. Pool fans won’t come to see a politician shoot pool. They’d want to see professionals. You could set that up a lot more easily. The pool halls would love the bump in business.”

“Do you know who they would pay to see?” Malcolm asked. Griffen thought for a moment.

“Yes, there’s Eddie Brown. I saw him in an exhibition last year. He’s the best—if we can get him to come. And there are a few other players I’ve seen.”

“That’s a great idea,” Horsie said.

Malcolm rose to his feet and dusted his hands together.

“Pool, then. Griffen, you will make all the arrangements. Er, Horsie, the advertising and promotion are up to you.”

“No problem,” the campaign manager said with a cheerful grin. “We’ll plaster the state with it. We could get hundreds of entrants.”

“Then that’s settled.”

“No!” Griffen protested. Malcolm frowned at him.

“But, Griffen, you know those who would be the biggest draw, don’t you? And you know the ins and outs of the games and who has a facility that might donate its time for our event in exchange for favorable publicity? I think it is a splendid solution.”

“So do I. Thank you, Griffen,” Penny said. She kissed him on the cheek. “I am so sorry to have caused you all that bother.”

She strode to the door and flung it open.

“Well, what are all of you staring at?” she asked the staff in the outer office. “Hit those phones! And could someone come in here and sweep up? We had a little mess.”

“Yes, ma’am!” The volunteers sprang to work. Fox Lisa bent to gather up the spilled flowers. Malcolm took his cell phone from his pocket and began to dial a number.

Griffen found himself standing alone in the middle of the room. He stared at his uncle.

“How is it when you have an idea, I end up doing all the work?”

Malcolm put his hand over the microphone.

“Delegation, Griffen. Someday you will understand what that really means. Ah, yes, Miss Callaway, good morning!”

Griffen
left the third pool hall with a handful of papers, including menus, the history of the hall, and a sample contract for holding an event. The owners, two men in their sixties, Griffen was grateful to discover, were indifferent to politics.

“If your money’s green, you can vote for Martians,” the older one said.

“How about dragons?” Griffen had asked. They laughed, but he felt as if he had gotten in the last word.

The fee to rent the hall for an evening was lower than the other two halls he had visited but still higher than Penny’s depleted campaign purse could easily afford. He wasn’t at all surprised to discover, with a major election coming on and candidates for almost every office looking for an angle, that no one would offer a break on their facilities. The same went for the professionals. Jamie Dewar, a pro Griffen had seen and admired, said he would be happy to appear, for a three-thousand-dollar fee plus expenses. They might have to fall back on Penny making trick shots and three-bank caroms for the cameras.

Griffen still had to come up with prizes, too. Malcolm’s instructions had been clear: They must speak to the character of the state, they must not cost the campaign money if possible, and they must be “presentable.” Griffen cringed at that adjective, but he understood. He couldn’t ask for sponsorship from any of the gambling associations or titty bars along Bourbon though they had the money and would have loved the publicity.

He strode back toward the Quarter. In spite of feeling railroaded, he enjoyed walking around the city, getting to know people. New Orleans had several districts, each with its own personality. The quiet, residential streets in between the economic centers, with their wrought-iron balconies dripping with flowering creepers elicited comparisons with the Mediterranean cities from which the city’s European founders had come. People gave him a smile or a wave as he went by, and he returned the salutes. He couldn’t imagine that happening up North, where making eye contact with strangers made them worry what it was you wanted from them.

The election was inescapable, no matter where he walked. On the tiny lawns in front of the wooden houses, clusters of campaign signs sprouted. Griffen didn’t have to look far to see
DUNBAR FOR GOVERNOR
banners, but those were outnumbered heavily by the front-runners, Jindal and Blanco, and, surprisingly, by the candidate who had been neck and neck with her in the polls, Congressman Benson.

A few houses down, Griffen saw why.

“Hey!” he yelled.

A young black man wearing a vest over a T-shirt stood up to see who had addressed him. He had just yanked a Dunbar sign out of the ground in front of a property near the street corner. Griffen loped toward him. The young man backed away in alarm and took off running.

Griffen was fast on his feet, but the youth had distance on his side. He disappeared around the corner as Griffen reached the yard from which the sign had been displaced.

Griffen windmilled to a stop. He saw no point in continuing the chase. What would he do if he caught him, anyhow? Instead, he went to replace the sign in the ground.

It wasn’t there. Amid a pile of Benson signs, the bracket lay on the grass, but it was empty except for a few charred scraps clinging to it. Griffen frowned. He had not seen the youth pull out a lighter or anything else with which he could have burned it. It seemed that Benson had his share of supernatural assistance. That was going to make the race more interesting.

He took the remaining Benson signs into a blind spot between two houses. To the utter joy of the fire spark in his midsection, Griffen let his temper build to the boiling point. A gush of fire rushed out of his mouth. The signs in his hands crisped and blackened. With a feeling of satisfaction, he dumped them in the next trash can. No sense in making it easier for the opposition.

Griffen sauntered around the corner. A screen door slammed beside him. He glanced through it at the small diner. It looked as if it was doing good business. He pulled the door open and found himself a seat at the counter. The stout black woman in the pink waitress uniform behind it came over to smile at him.

“Coffee, honey?”

“Yes,” Griffen said. He moved his hands so she could pour the hot, black liquid into the stoneware cup. “What’s good?”

“Everything, else we wouldn’t serve it.”

Griffen squinted at the menu, written in chalk on a peeling blackboard above the hatch to the kitchen. “Shrimp po’ boy.”

“You got it.” She almost did a double take. “Say, didn’t I see you on the television with one of them politicians?”

Several of the diners glanced up and gave Griffen a suspicious glance.

“Yes, you did,” Griffen acknowledged, cringing for the inevitable discussion of Penny and her policies.

“Well, you cain’t do no politickin’ in here,” she said. “You let my customers eat in peace.”

“Believe me,” Griffen said, gratefully, “that’s all I want.”

“Well, good. That’s the rules: no hand-shakin’ and no baby-kissin’.”

Everyone relaxed and went back to their meals. Griffen sighed. The jungle primary was a little more than two months away. He couldn’t wait for it to be over with. It sounded like most of his fellow N’Awlinians had the same feeling.

•   •   •

Griffen
took the paperwork from the three pool halls home with him, along with a videotape he had ordered at Tower Records. It had been years since he had seen
My Fellow Americans
. He put the tape into his machine and threw himself onto the couch with his notebook and his cell phone. Enjoying the antics of Jack Lemmon and James Garner maneuvering to become the next president gave him a break from the real campaign but kept him in the mood for his task.

He figured that in order to make money, he needed at least eight tables for the contest, with plenty of room for onlookers and the press. The largest hall was up a flight of stairs, tough for disabled patrons, but it had twenty-three pool tables and a great kitchen. In Griffen’s opinion, it was the best prospect, but it also had the highest price tag. No amount of persuasion had moved the owners to knock down their fee. He even brought up Penny’s promise that half the proceeds would go to school programs for kids. They correctly countered with the fact that the event would rob them of a day’s revenue from the entire game room. Not only that, but it was a publicity event for a politician. If she wanted to make a large donation to charity, the owners pointed out, she could write a check. Griffen could hardly argue.

All three had offered suggestions for prizes. One was a month of free play in the game room, with the equivalent in cash for out-of-towners. Another wanted to spot the winners to a fancy dinner for two at Commander’s Palace. That wasn’t bad, but the second- and third-place prizes were only T-shirts. He’d have to seek out local merchants who were willing to donate better gifts, probably in exchange for getting their names on the posters and in the flyers. Horsie would have to handle that.

Griffen groaned as he scribbled notes in his pocket pad. He felt as though he had been railroaded into helping, probably because he
had
been railroaded. He could have walked out of the meeting, but Fox Lisa was so enthusiastic about the idea that he didn’t have the heart to do it.

His cell phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number. It might have been one of the halls calling to let him know they had changed their mind about the fees. He put on his most professional voice.

“Good afternoon, Griffen McCandles.”

“Hey, Griffen, I’m sprung!”

“Gris-gris!” Griffen said, delighted. “Where are you?”

“Down near your front door, brother. Want to buzz me in?”

Griffen went out to unlock the street door to the courtyard himself. Gris-gris was waiting, bobbing from foot to foot like a little boy. He sprang over the threshold and grabbed Griffen by the hand. He looked healthier than he had in weeks. The dull matte of his cheeks had become shiny and clear again. His eyes gleamed like onyx. Griffen felt his spirits lift.

“Man, it’s good to see you,” Griffen said.

“It’s good to see anybody outside my parlor,” Gris-gris said. He seemed almost wild with unspent energy. “You probably used to it, with the connections you got, but I never had such a rush. I
felt
that plant die. It just let go, and I got hit by this wall of energy, all but knockin’ me down. I sat beside a couple of deathbeds in my time, and I never felt anythin’ but sorry for the person who was passin’. This was different. Way different.”

“When did it happen?” Griffen asked.

“About five minutes ago.” Gris-gris darted from one side of the sunny courtyard to another. “I couldn’t wait to get out of that house. Had to put that place behind me, at least for a while. I think I ran all the way here. Say, you got anything to drink, man? My mouth feels like the Sahara.”

“I have some pop upstairs. If you want something stronger, we’ll have to go out.”

“No, man,” Gris-gris said, a little grin raising the corners of his mouth. “I mean, I’m just thirsty. It’s like all my senses come back to life at once!”

He followed Griffen toward the door of his garden-level apartment, then darted up the stairs to Val’s. Griffen followed him, taking the steps two at a time. The smaller man flipped a key ring out of his pocket and let himself in.

It had been over a month since Griffen had gone inside his sister’s apartment. After she had been gone more than a week, he had cleaned out her refrigerator and turned the air-conditioning off. The air in the small flat felt stale and still. Gris-gris walked through each of the rooms in turn. He turned to Griffen forlornly.

“She really gone.”

“Yeah,” Griffen said. “I hope you didn’t think I was hiding her from you, did you?”

“No. You had a right to, if she ast you—you her brother. I knew you’d tell me the truth if she didn’t want to see me. Just had to see for myself. Any news on her?”

“No. I hired a . . . kind of private detective. No news yet, but he has more of a chance of finding her than we will.”

“Somethin’ special?” Gris-gris asked. “Like you?”

“Yes, but not like us. George is different from anyone else I know.”

“Let me know if you hear. Is that Mrs. Melinda involved?”

“Probably,” Griffen admitted. “I can’t prove it one way or the other yet.”

Gris-gris pounded a fist into his palm. “If I ever get my hands on that lady . . .”

“I’d leave her alone if I were you,” Griffen said, alarmed. “She’s dangerous.”

“So am I!”

Griffen gave him a wry grin. “I know. Come on down and have a drink.”

In his apartment, Griffen popped a couple of cold cans and poured them into glasses. Gris-gris threw himself impatiently onto the couch, dislodging all the flyers and notebooks.

“Hey, sorry,” he said, bending to pick up the papers. “What’s all this?”

Griffen shrugged. “More stuff for the campaign. Penny wants to run a pool tournament. I’m trying to find a venue, but they all want too much money. Between you and me, she’s out of cash. We need a place that can hold a couple of hundred people, but the fees are too high.”

“I can help,” Gris-gris said. “I got some connections myself. I know a couple of good places. They’ll knock some money off the fees as a favor to me.”

“Really?” Griffen asked, feeling the tightness in his belly ease. “Thanks, Gris-gris.”

“Huh. Least I can do since you been sittin’ with me, keepin’ me from going out of my mind. I just wasn’t right.”

“Well, now you are,” Griffen said.

Gris-gris was never one to linger in the past. “But you was lookin’ for a pool hall. What could be in it for the owners?”

“In terms of cash, the bare minimum,” Griffen said. He found the paper with the figures on the floor and handed it to Gris-gris. “Pretty much everything she has left at the moment has to go for publicity. When we get some donations in, I can put down a deposit. We’d offer a percentage of the gate and all the catering profits.”

The smaller man couldn’t sit still any longer. He sprang up onto his feet and started pacing restlessly.

“Okay. Let me call some people. Who you talked to so far?”

Griffen gave him the flyers from the three halls he had visited.

“Oh, yeah, that’s one of my cousins,” Gris-gris said, pointing to the second flyer. “I’ll see what I can get him to do. Meantime, I got to get some games organized for tonight. Thanks, man. See you later.”

He gulped half the glass of soda and set it down. Griffen had to hurry to open the door for him.