Intervention
©2011 Suzanne Johnson
F |
amily. He loved them, but what a pain in the ass they could be. His cousin was cooling his jets in a New Orleans jail. Again.
Ending the call with his mother, Alexander Warin massaged the residual throbbing in his temple and squinted through the slats of his living room blinds. His soon-to-be-ex girlfriend stalked around his car clutching a rumpled piece of paper. He recognized the “Dear Cindy” letter on FBI letterhead he’d slipped under her door after his early-morning jog.
It had been a chickenshit move, but lately she’d gotten clingy and possessive. He’d never promised hearts and flowers. If the woman wanted a lapdog, she needed to date an accountant, or a vet.
He clenched his jaw muscles as she tested the lock on the driver’s-side door of his black BMW, polished to its habitual gloss. If she as much as thought about scraping her car keys across his custom paint job, she would see how handcuffs felt when she was fully dressed.
Hands on her hips, she stared at the front of his condo a few long moments before sticking up the middle finger of each hand in the classic gesture for things they’d already done upside down and sideways. Then she climbed back in her sissy little SUV and left skid marks on his driveway.
He grinned and let the slats flap shut. Perfect.
Alex returned to his bedroom, throwing clothes in the suitcase he’d begun packing halfway through his mom’s call. Norma Warin was not a force to be denied, and if she said drive to New Orleans and get your cousin out of jail, well, he’d be spending his long weekend dealing with Jake.
After a quick recon to make sure the newly liberated Cindy wasn’t lying in wait, Alex took his black overnighter, put it in the Beemer’s trunk, and climbed in for the four-hour drive from Jackson to New Orleans. He punched the key into the ignition, paused, and pulled it back out.
Jake was in trouble, and Alex wouldn't be a welcome sight. The cousins’ rivalry was legendary in their hometown of Picayune, Mississippi. Plus, New Orleans was a festering boil on the ass of crime—both human and preternatural. He needed weapons.
Twenty minutes later, he hit I-55 heading south, his bag sitting on the back floorboard so his armory would fit in the trunk. He’d shoved his Tracker, a wizard-issued device to trace preternatural energy, into his pocket. His baby—a big, solid Colt .45 with custom grips and a barrel modified for specialized ammo—rested in a shoulder holster beneath his black sports coat.
The serious firepower was in the trunk. He might be an enforcer for the wizarding world’s Congress of Elders, but Alexander Warin ranked a few human foes right up there on the danger scale with werewolves and goblins. One never knew what might show up in New Orleans spoiling for a fight, including pissed-off ex-Marine cousins.
A |
lex eased the car through the congested streets of downtown New Orleans and made his way through progressively seedier neighborhoods till he found the mammoth Orleans Parish Courthouse and, behind it, the blocky parish jail. He flashed his FBI badge at the bored officer manning the lot next to Central Lockup, and wedged the Beemer into a narrow spot beside an overflowing dumpster noisy with flies.
That no one in the family had the nerve to drive the hour from Picayune to pick Jake up after his mandatory forty-eight hours in lockup told boatloads about their frustration. Jake had seemed better lately, more like the man he’d been before Afghanistan. Now this. Second DUI. Working full-time at the bar. No interest in anything—well, except the “New Orleans floozy” his mom said Jake had taken up with. Norma Warin’s idea of what constituted a fallen woman was broad and wide, however, so Alex didn’t put much stock in it.
He stared at the dumpster, plotting a strategy. He wouldn’t coddle Jake. That was part of the problem. Ever since the remnants of his Marine unit had limped back from Afghanistan, the family had tiptoed around him.
Alex didn’t tiptoe. The wizards responsible for keeping the borders between the modern world and the preternatural world Beyond had recruited him early, trained him for their preternatural task force with an FBI front, and taught him to fight hard and shoot fast. If he could handle the monsters normal folks didn’t know about, he could damned well handle his cousin’s internal monsters.
Plus, if it came to a fist fight, he’d win. Jake was more likely to play dirty, but Alex had four inches and at least fifty pounds on him.
Central Lockup was hopping, even early on a Friday afternoon, and after making sure Jake’s legal ducks were aligned, Alex settled against the lime-sherbet-colored cinderblock walls and watched the flotsam and jetsam of New Orleans’ underbelly ebb and flow.
A door slammed in the back of the building, clanging metal, and Jake headed toward him down a narrow hallway alongside a man whose appearance Alex assessed with a practiced eye: African-American, neatly dressed, a couple inches shorter than Jake, so about five-nine, bland business suit. Too rumpled and off-the-rack to be a lawyer; Alex guessed NOPD detective. Why would Jake rate a detective escort―unless he was in more trouble than a simple DUI?
His eyes shifted to his cousin and his stomach flipped. Holy shit. He hadn’t seen Jake in three months, and the change was marked. Jake’s frame, always hard and steel-plated wiry compared to Alex’s six-three bulk, looked gaunt, and the limp from Afghanistan was more pronounced. He’d torn up both legs with a tumble from a cliff that had probably saved his life, but no amount of surgery could help get him back in track-running shape. His expression was frayed and exhausted―until he spotted Alex leaning against the wall.
A careful mask of insolence settled into place. “Well, I know things are bad now,” he drawled. “The family Fed has been sent to deal with poor, screwed-up Jacob.”
His voice carried across the room, barely rating a blip on the collective apathy of lawyers, cops and detainees.
The detective steered him toward the line at the window to be processed out, then headed toward Alex. “I’m Ken Hachette.” He stuck out a hand.
Alex gave himself a mental slap. He should have realized who this was: Jake’s Marine buddy and co-owner of their French Quarter bar, the Green Gator—and a cop. They’d never met, but Alex had heard good things about the guy. Straight arrow. Sober and serious. The kind of friend Jake needed.
“You’re a detective now?”
Ken nodded, his expression somber. “Homicide.”
A thrill of fear ran through Alex. “Damn it. Who’d he kill?”
Ken’s laugh was humorless. “Nobody, at least not that I know of. I’m just here to make sure he gets out of lockup without his smartass mouth making him a permanent resident. Hope you can talk some sense into him.”
Yeah, good luck with that. Alex and Jake had been knocking the crap out of each other since four-year-old Jake had beaned two-year-old Alex with a Tonka truck. A big growth spurt in high school gave Alex a size advantage but Jake made up for it with a wide streak of ornery.
Jake had reached the processing window, and Alex shook his head. “Give me the short version.”
“Not sure,” Ken said, crossing his arms. “I thought he was doing good. Has a lot of pain in that right leg, but he’s been doing a great job at the Gator. Then he got this new girlfriend about a month ago and…” he shook his head. “She’s bad news. I swear the problem starts and ends with her.”
Maybe Norma had been right. “Who's the chick?”
Ken’s answer was interrupted by Jake’s sudden appearance at his elbow. “Hachette-man, I see you’ve met Buffy.” Jake grinned, the dimples and shaggy blond hair the same as always but no life in his amber-colored eyes.
Ken raised an eyebrow. “Buffy?”
“Well, hell, look at him. He’s the family specimen. Big Fed. Man’s man.”
Alex fought to keep an Elvis snarl from curling his upper lip. “This isn’t the place, Jake. Let’s go.”
In an instant, Jake deflated. He clapped Ken on the shoulder and pushed the door open ahead of him. He let it slam in Alex’s face.
On his way out, Alex looked back and Ken handed him a business card. “Call me.”
T |
hey spent a half-hour of mostly silence on the drive to the French Quarter, where Jake lived in a spartan apartment above the Green Gator. Their conversation was stilted and sterile.
Alex didn’t think the car was the place to tackle Drinking or The War or The Future or, God forbid, The Woman, so he limited his questions to easy subjects. Jake limited his answers to monosyllables.
“Talked to your dad lately?” Alex asked. He hadn’t seen Uncle Eddie in a few months.
“Nope.”
“The bar doing a good business?”
“Yeah.”
“You working there full-time?”
“I am.”
“Heard you have a new girlfriend.”
Finally, a reaction. Jake shifted his stare from the passing scenery to Alex. “Who told you that?”
“My mom, who doesn’t think she’s good enough for you, which means she probably got it straight from your mom.”
A half-smile. “Mom and Aunt Norma, the Titans of Picayune.”
“So what’s her name?”
“Madalyn.” Jake crossed his arms, reclined his head on the headrest and closed his eyes. End of subject.
Alex dropped his cousin off in front of the Gator and went on the prowl for a parking spot off Bourbon Street—no simple task, even in the dregs of summer.
When he got back from carrying his overnighter four blocks, his shirt was soaked with sweat from the stifling humidity. Jake sat behind the bar at the near end of the long, narrow room. He wore a pair of dark-rimmed glasses and worked in a ledger, frowning in concentration.
Alex paused in the door as his eyes adjusted from bright sunlight to barroom darkness, watching his cousin make quick notations and calculations. Jake was a smart man, especially with numbers. He hadn’t gotten his business degree on his looks.
According to Ken, whom Alex had called during the parking-spot hunt, Jake had been running the bar singlehandedly and turning a bigger profit in the last six months than they’d ever seen. He’d developed new marketing ideas, and put together a proposal for a kitchen. Before this little stunt, Ken had hoped to sell his share of the business to Jake outright if Jake could get the financing. But selling a bar to a man with a history of alcohol problems and poor self-control could be like setting a terrier in a box full of rats.
There was always a chance the rats might win and the fight would always be ugly.
There was always a chance the rats might win and the fight would always be ugly.
Jake glanced up and pointed Alex to the barstool in front of him. “You look like a man in need of a drink.”
“Abita.” Alex took a sniff of Jake’s Coke bottle while his cousin fetched the beer. No alcohol.
“It’s straight,” Jake said, sliding back onto his stool as he set the beer in front of Alex. “Might as well get it over with, whatever you got to say. I don’t want to sit around watching you work up your nerve while you drink my inventory.”
Alex took a sip and watched as Jake answered a question for the bartender, a dark-haired woman with café-au-lait skin. She’d already tossed a couple of smiles his way. Alex wouldn’t mind getting to know her now that Cindy was firmly in the ex category.
Jake busted him mid-ogle. “Eyes front, soldier. Leyla’s off-limits. Now say what you’ve got to say.”
Alex blew out a frustrated breath. He hated to yell at Jake when he looked so whipped.
Then again, Alex had given up his long weekend for this. “Fine.” He set his bottle down with a thump. “What the hell are you doing, Jake? Two DUIs? You’ll be lucky if they don’t jerk your license. You’re gonna end up back in Picayune working at the family hardware store and getting—”
Jake had stopped listening. The arrogant son of a bitch wasn’t even looking at him anymore. His eyes had focused on something past Alex’s shoulder, something that had put a smile on his face.
Alex spun his stool around to see what―or whom―was so damned important. Definitely a whom. She had her back to them, talking to some tourist types at a table. The woman was tall and slender, auburn-haired, wearing a black lacy thing up top and tight jeans that molded to her assets…
Alex shook his head to restart his brain in time for the woman to turn and steal his breath again.
She was perfect, and Alex wanted her, even as her wide green eyes swept past him and locked on Jake. She moved with a grace that made Alex want to grovel and beg for her to look at him. He wanted to hit Jake and take her for himself.
Madalyn—because this had to be her—walked around the bar and pulled Jake toward her for a long, slow kiss. Alex watched, shifty-eyed, and his pants developed a buzzing tingle.
The tingle intensified to a jarring vibration, and he clamped his hand on his pocket in annoyance. The Tracker was going off. Damned wizards had no sense of timing.
Jake and the redhead hadn’t come up for air, so Alex swiveled away from them reluctantly and pulled the Tracker from his pocket. If it had gone from buzz to vibrate, it means something preternatural was close.
A red dot pulsed in the center of the tiny screen, its steady rhythm speeding as he pivoted slowly on his stool. When it was pointed back at Jake and Madalyn, it went solid red.
Well, shit. The goddess of a woman sucking Jake’s lips off his face might be sexy as hell, but she sure wasn’t human.
A |
lex stuck his cell phone back in his pocket and thrummed his fingers on the table of the corner booth he’d taken at the Gator. Jake and the woman—er, thing—hadn’t noticed his absence, and the call to the Elders hadn’t helped.
His restless hands twitched at the scrap of napkin on the table, where he’d scribbled the names of the Sentinels for the New Orleans regions. It was really their job to rid the city of whatever flavor of preternatural Madalyn happened to be; enforcers were the last resort. But he hated to get Jake messed up with wizards. He’d never met Gerald St. Simon, the New Orleans Sentinel, or his deputy, Drusilla Jaco, but he’d bet a month’s paycheck they were as prickly and annoying as every other wizard he’d met.
He folded the napkin and stuck it in his pocket. The Elders would let the Sentinels know to stay out of it unless he called, and he didn’t plan to call.
Alex leaned back and sipped his beer, watching Jake and Madalyn and thinking about the reaction he’d had to her. From a distance, he could see that she was pretty, but not kill-your-cousin pretty. Jake was no match for her. Alex couldn’t see Madalyn’s face, but Jake’s eyes followed her every movement. Reminded him of the old dog their granddad used to have. Spike would sit at his and Jake’s feet when they were kids, watching whoever was eating. They’d hold the food up and wave it around in the air, laughing as Spike’s eyes followed their hands in whirligigs and circles.
That’s how Jake watched Madalyn, like he was hungry for whatever scrap she might toss him. She had to be a prete that could enthrall. Alex ticked through the most likely culprits. It was daylight, so she wasn't vampire. Sirens showed up in New Orleans on occasion, but Madalyn had gotten in his head without singing a note. He’d place odds on nymph or demon. A nymph would wear Jake out and move on. A succubus would wear Jake out till she siphoned the life out of him―then she’d move on. Either way, some fool had summoned her and she'd obviously escaped.
The sexy bartender managed to get Jake’s attention away from Madalyn briefly. She spun on the barstool to canvass the room. Her eyes roamed past Alex, then snapped back.
Alex felt her will beating against his mental barricades and gave her a slow smile. Her lips puffed out in a pouty frown and a small wrinkle appeared between perfect brows. Enforcer Training 101: the mental shield. He was good at it.
Tipping down the rest of his beer, Alex slid from the booth and unfolded all six-three of height and two-forty of muscle, stretching a little for effect and chuckling as her eyes grew hooded. He knew what to do. Hell, it might even be fun.
He maintained eye contact as he approached, and Madalyn bit her bottom lip. Again, Alex felt her will looking for a way into his head. She was strong, and he had to concentrate—give her just enough eye contact so she’d think he was hooked but not enough to get hooked. At the last second, he veered to the bar and looked away from her altogether. The jukebox was between songs, so her low growl was audible.
“Yo, Jake. The other upstairs apartment still empty?”
Jake glanced up from a stack of papers and handed them to the bartender. “Tell the distributors to hold off till tomorrow,” he told her before turning back to Alex. “Yeah, it’s unlocked—key’s on the kitchen table. You staying?”
A tingle traveled across Alex’s chest and straight to his groin as Madalyn put a hand on his shoulder. “Yeah.” He had to choke out the word.
“Jacob, you haven’t introduced us.” Madalyn's voice was husky, her accent exotic.
“He’s nobody you need to know.” Jake glared at Alex. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
Alex eased away from Madalyn’s hand—definitely didn’t need to be touching her. “Yeah, I’m going up to my room.” He retrieved his overnighter from behind the bar. “Relax a while." He looked back at her. "Get out of these clothes.”
Her pupils expanded, then elongated and narrowed like a goat’s. Succubus. He felt her gaze tracking him all the way through the bar, into the back hallway, and around the corner into the stairwell. It felt like spiders crawling under his skin.
T |
he spare apartment on the second floor of the Green Gator had been decorated in the same crap as Jake’s place across the small landing: early garage sale. Plaid sofa, brown naugahyde recliner with stuffing poking out, scarred dining table with two rickety chairs constructed of something approximating wood. Alex had only stayed here once or twice—most of the Elders’ business in New Orleans was handled by the Sentinels, which was fine with him.
He loved the jazz and the big live oaks and the lacy iron balconies but along with all that came the dirt, the noise, the crime, and the infuriatingly inefficient and eccentric assortment of residents.
Alex pulled off the jacket, unstrapped the shoulder holster, and dug in the overnighter for his emergency supply of ammo; he had two specially-designed hollow bullets filled with holy water that had “demon” written all over them. Too bad the rest of his supply was still in the car. He released the safety, chambered a round, and laid the gun on the sofa next to him. Leaned back and waited.
Jake must have been holding on tight because it took her almost five minutes to arrive.
She walked in without knocking. Her green eyes were too bright, her hair too vividly auburn—some kind of glamour.
Alex rose slowly, letting her get an eyeful. Her naked, hungry gaze brought goosebumps to his skin as it washed over him, and the first prickles of doubt followed. In his desire to keep Jake separate from a world he didn’t know about, Alex had broken the cardinal rule for any agent, whether FBI or enforcer: always go in with backup.
Too late, he realized he should’ve called the damned Sentinels.
Madalyn came to stand in front of him and placed her palm on his chest, looking up at him suspiciously. “What are you, Alexander Warin?”
Had Jake told her his name, or was she that powerful? Her energy spiraled across his chest and he fought to keep her out of his head. Another mistake: he drank the beer.
He channeled his inner John Wayne. “I’m the man you never wanted to meet. It's time for you to go. Just fade back into the Beyond, or hell, or wherever you came from—no need for this to get messy.” He grasped her wrist with his left hand in case he needed to grab the gun with his right, and kept his voice low. “But I don’t mind making a mess if I have to.”
She jerked her arm away and circled him. “You are not a wizard. I would be able to feel your power.” She came to a stop in front of him again, and cocked her head. “You are an enforcer, yes? You work for the wizards. What else are you?”
He raised an eyebrow but didn’t answer. She smiled slowly, and he kept his eyes firmly on her nose—now that she knew what he was, she’d try harder to enthrall him. “You were foolish to meet me alone, Alexander. You are arrogant.” She moved closer till her too-perfect breasts brushed his chest. “Jacob will not live another week. I have enjoyed using him up at my leisure, but maybe I will finish him now that you have come to play. You will be more fun."
If he’d needed proof she was behind Jake’s recent downslide, now he had it. “Leave Jake,” he said, taking a step backward. “I’m a better match." He lowered his voice. "But I need to know who I’m dealing with. What kind of demon name is Madalyn?”
She laughed, and for an instant the glamour dropped and the monster behind the pretty façade emerged. Lumpy, mottled skin of greenish-gray, dingy teeth that looked as if they’d been filed into points, hair the color of red licorice. Startled, Alex looked into her yellow, goat-slitted eyes—and couldn’t look away.
The glamour washed back across her face but she changed her body, elongating it until she could look him in the eye.
Alex panicked and tried to move, but his limbs were no longer taking orders from his brain. Even his tongue wouldn’t budge.
“Take off your shirt,” Madalyn—or the thing that called itself Madalyn—said, and Alex fought it. He really did. He willed his hands to stop as they lifted to clutch the neck of his t-shirt. Ordered them to be still as they wrenched the shirt over his head and dropped it to the floor. Begged them to stay in place as they reached for her.
Madalyn laughed, a feral sound that shouldn’t be heard outside a bedroom, and Alex’s body responded to it. Lust threatened to wipe out reason, but the shock of her reaching around him and picking up the Colt was like a splash of ice water.
He’d forgotten the flippin’ gun. What kind of enforcer did that? He deserved to be shot with his own bullets full of holy water.
“You must not be very smart, Alexander,” Madalyn said, echoing his own thoughts as she waved the gun by its barrel. The safety was off and with any luck, she’d shoot herself. But today hadn’t been lucky so far.
“Put your arms around me.” Madalyn poked him in the abs with the gun handle.
Please fire it. Shoot yourself, bitch.
But the gun didn’t fire, and he mentally cursed his arms as they reached around her, stroking skin he shouldn’t want to touch, eager for her to literally love him to death.
She stretched out an arm and dropped the gun on the coffee table with a clatter. He couldn’t will his hands to leave her long enough to retrieve it.
Damn it, she’d kill Jake as soon as she finished with him, then find her next victim. He’d screwed up, big-time.
A |
lex didn’t hear Jake come in, wasn’t sure how long he’d been there watching what he thought was his girlfriend suddenly growing a foot taller and sucking out his cousin’s soul―or whatever the hell she was doing. Alex, in any form he knew himself, had become no more than a bundle of nerve endings and constricting lungs, a pounding heartbeat and a growing whoosh of blood building behind his eyeballs.
Jake appeared next to them, holding the Colt.
Alex tried to remember if it was his gun, and why Jake would have it, or if his cousin had carried a Colt in the Marines. The sound of a bullet being chambered helped clear his head, and finally attracted Madalyn’s attention. She stepped back.
With her touch gone and eye contact broken, the effect on Alex was immediate. He could breathe again, felt his brain re-engage like some rusty cog had slid into place and begun a halting rotation. His rubbery legs gave way, and he sat hard on the sofa.
Jake had the pistol pointed halfway between Madalyn and Alex. “Don’t come near me,” he told her. “I haven’t decided which one of you I’m gonna shoot yet.” Jake’s voice was hard and his Mississippi drawl exaggerated. It was his macho, don’t-mess-with-me voice. Alex had heard it a million times, although never with a gun behind it. His gun. He remembered that now.
“Jacob, look at me.” Madalyn got Jake’s attention, then dropped her glamour.
His face drained of color and he shifted the gun toward her. “Holy hell. What are you?”
Alex was still struggling to his feet when Jake fired, and true to his cousin’s training the bullet hit home. Right in Madalyn’s heart, or whatever demons had.
Alex had to move fast, needed to gain control. He fell back on habit, propelling himself off the sofa and straight into Jake. His head butted Jake’s stomach with enough force to send them both sprawling.
Alex had to move fast, needed to gain control. He fell back on habit, propelling himself off the sofa and straight into Jake. His head butted Jake’s stomach with enough force to send them both sprawling.
The Colt flew against the lamp with a crash, and Jake was so rattled that Alex managed to get off three good punches―the last one an uppercut that caught Jake on the nerve just below the chin. Jake’s head hit the wooden floor with a thump, and his eyes fluttered closed. Unconscious―just the way Alex wanted him.
Alex rolled off him and looked at Madalyn, or what was left of the demon―basically, a puddle of ectoplasm. Once her physical container was destroyed by the holy bullet, her rotted soul, or whatever made up her demonic essence, faded back into the Beyond. She’d live to be summoned another day. Hopefully far from here.
He retrieved the Colt from the floor, along with his t-shirt, and laid the former on the kitchen table with the holster. He pulled the latter over his head, settled into the recliner, and waited for Jake to waken.
Must have been a damned fine uppercut, because it took Jake a good quarter-hour to fully come around. He finally sat up, rubbing his chin and jaw. A bruise had already purpled, and a trail of blood dripped off his lower lip. He blinked at Alex, then glanced around the room. “Where’s Madalyn?”
So far, so good. Jake didn’t seem to remember seeing the demon without its glamour.
“Gone,” Alex said. “She called us a couple of rednecks and left us to fight it out.”
Jake frowned, looked at his hands, held his right hand to his nose. “Only problem with that story, cowboy, is that these knuckles didn’t hit anybody, you don’t have a mark on you, and I fired a gun.” He continued to stare at his hands, and his eyes widened.
Shit. He was remembering. Alex held his breath. If Jake remembered enough, Alex would have to call the Sentinels after all, to alter his memories.
“You were fooling around with my pistol and it went off—nobody hurt.” Alex jerked his head toward the table.
Jake stared at the gun a moment, shook his head, and clambered to his feet. “Man, I gotta cut back on the drinking. I had the craziest dream while I was out.” He flopped on the end of the sofa nearest Alex’s chair.
“Sorry I hit you so hard.”
Jake flexed his jaw from side to side and wiped the blood from his chin with his shirttail. “That makes two of us. My brain feels like it’s been shaken and stirred.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the back sofa cushion. “Seems like I should be upset that Madalyn’s gone, but truth be told, I’m kinda relieved. That woman was some kind of intense. I’m tired as hell.”
Alex nodded. Jake had no idea.
They sat in companionable silence another few minutes before Jake hauled himself off the sofa. “Oh well. Headache or not, I need to get back downstairs. Leyla’s a great bartender but she’s not used to running things by herself.”
Alex followed him to the door. “I’ll just hang here tonight and head back to Jackson tomorrow. You gonna be okay?”
Jake turned to face him. “Be fine as long as I take care of one last thing.”
“What?”
Alex didn’t see the fist till a split-second before impact with his mouth.
“That,” Jake said, “was for kissing my girl. You’re still wearing her lipstick, shit-for-brains.”
Alex grinned as he climbed to his feet and spat out a mouthful of blood. The old Jake was back.
Alex grinned as he climbed to his feet and spat out a mouthful of blood. The old Jake was back.
J |
ake was still sacked out when Alex left the next morning. He pulled the apartment door shut behind him, stuck a note on Jake’s door across the landing, and walked through the quiet, dark bar to let himself out the back. Every table had been cleaned, every ashtray emptied, the floors mopped. Even the bathrooms had their doors propped open and were as clean as any bar in the French Quarter that only closed between four and ten a.m. Jake really knew how to run this place.
Alex strolled back to his car by a circuitous route so he could pick up a bag of beignets from Café du Monde. He stopped to sit on the benches in front of the St. Louis Cathedral, eating and tossing occasional crumbs to the pigeons. The fortune tellers and artists hadn’t yet set up around Jackson Square, and the mule-drawn carts were lined up along Decatur Street, awaiting the hordes of bleary-eyed tourists. The air had a touch of coolness, and Alex could almost imagine he liked this place, saw the charm of it, understood why Jake had settled here.
He pulled out his cell phone and called Ken.
“How much were you gonna ask Jake to buy you out of the bar?” he asked after giving Ken a highly censored account of Madalyn’s exit and Jake’s expected return to normal.
“Just what I put in when we bought it—he’s done all the work,” Ken said. “You want to buy me out instead?”
Alex winced at the idea trying to share ownership of anything with Jake. “No, Jake’s going to buy it—he just doesn’t know it. I’ll send you a cashier’s check when I get home, but Jake can’t know about it. Tell him you’re handing it over gratis because you don’t have time for it—or make something up he’ll believe.”
He paused. “And if you ever tell Jake I paid you, I’ll hunt you down.” He wasn’t joking.
He paused. “And if you ever tell Jake I paid you, I’ll hunt you down.” He wasn’t joking.
Ken remained silent for a few moments. “You sure you don’t want him to know? It’s a big thing you’re doing.”
Jake would never take help from him. Neither of them would ever admit it out loud, but they were more like brothers than cousins. Jake needed a break. Plus, Alex made a lot of money—more than his family realized. The wizards considered his job extremely high-risk. Imagine that.
“Consider it my good deed for the week,” he told Ken. “We got a deal?”
Ken laughed. “You just bought yourself a half-share in a good man’s life, even if he doesn’t know it.”
Alex got Ken’s address, ended the call, and watched the pigeons fighting each other for the last crumbs of beignet. As long-term investments went, it wasn't a bad one.
Intervention
©2011 Suzanne Johnson
