It'll be better once we're home, he told himself, and hoped that it was true.
Chapter 7
Remo took one look at the New Orleans streets, decked out for Mardi Gras, and recognized a good news-bad news situation off the top. The Crescent City was in jubilant chaos, swinging with the massive party residents and tourists spent a whole year looking forward to, and no district of New Orleans was more rowdy than the teeming French Quarter. Remo watched the costumes and figures lurching past him, everything from painted dwarves to looming giants, all apparently intoxicated and intent on staying that way for the next several days.
A vacationing trio of sophomore coeds from Northern Illinois University ran up under Remo's balcony and yanked their shirts up to their chins. Remo found himself admiring their bare breasts, each pair more pleasing than the next.
"Sorry, girls," he said. "No beads."
"You don't need beads, shweetie!" one of them slurred. "We'll show you whatever you want! For free! How 'bout we come on up?"
"Cops!" Remo called. "Here they come!"
The coeds couldn't focus well enough to see that it was a lie and jogged off into the seething crowds. Smith and the insidious tentacles of CURE had reached out from Folcroft Sanitarium and somehow managed to get hotel reservations on Tchoupitoulas Street. Such rooms were normally sold out a year in advance of Mardi Gras, many of them to a clientele that showed up every year like clockwork. Remo and Chiun had one large room with a bed and a sleeper sofa, together with a tiny balcony that overlooked the crowded street and faced a rank of quaint saloons across the way.
The crush of inebriated flesh would complicate the task of finding Cuvier's old cohorts from the Cajun mob and squeezing them for leads on the elusive hit man. Staring at the freak show on parade below, Remo decided that a real-life werewolf would have no difficulty strolling down the boulevard and plucking victims from the crowd. No look was too grotesque for Mardi Gras, no behavior too bizarre. There would be witnesses, of course, but most of them would laugh it off, assuming that the act was some kind of burlesque, a Grand Guignol performance staged for their amusement.
Chiun had the television on. His ages-old infatuation with American soap operas, which had dimmed when they became too heavy on the gratuitous sex and violence, had recently reemerged with a twist. These days the old Korean was drawn to Spanish serials.
It got worse. Remo had recently begun to suspect that the ancient Korean was leaving the Spanish-language stations on a bit too long after the soap operas ended. Remo was wondering if maybe Chiun had become interested in...
No. Couldn't be. It was too horrible to contemplate.
But the guy on the screen right now was bad enough, and he spoke English, more or less. It was some kind of infomercial with a white-haired Southern statesman-type gesticulating for the camera, grinning like a used-car salesman. Was he selling fried chicken? No, Remo realized, it was politics.
"Now, my esteemed opponent likes to quote the Good Book in his speeches, tellin' you all the Lord Himself would vote Republican if He was registered in the great State of Louisiana. My dear old mama always taught me it was rude to argue with another man's religion, and I ain't about to go against her teaching now. But I will take a moment to remind you all of what the Book of Proverbs tells us, chapter twenty-six, verse five. It says, 'Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.' By which I mean to tell you all-"
"Who's the windbag?" Remo asked.
"That's Elmo Breen," said Cuvier. "Big man here in the parish and all across the state. He's friendly with Armand 'Big Crawdaddy' Fortier, I guarantee. The two of them are like that." He raised a hand, the first two fingers intertwined.
"This seersucker's running for office?"
"Governor," Cuvier said sincerely. "I expect he's going to make it, too, less Marvin pull a bunny out his hat."
"Who's Marvin?"
"You all ain't heard of the Reverend Marvin Rockwell?" Cuvier appeared to have some difficulty grasping the idea.
"We're not from around here," Remo explained. That was no excuse, Cuvier's expression told him.
Out loud the Cajun said, "Reverend Rock, I call him. He got a show on TV where you can save your soul without ever having to get up off your sofa. Fact is, Reverend Rock got him a network out of Shreveport there. They call it JBN, I think it is. The Jesus Broadcast Network, or something like."
"And he's running for governor, too?" asked Remo.
"Bet your life he runnin'. Runnin' hard, I guarantee. Old Rock got most of the Jesus people prayin' for him, sendin' in their money to help redeem the State of Louisiana. Throwing away their money is what they're doing."
"You're not a believer?"
"I believe in me," the Cajun said. "What else I got?"
"I thought all of you were Catholic down here," Remo said with a shrug.
Chiun ran through the channels once more, found little besides political announcements and Mardi Gras coverage, and glared hatefully at the television.
"Praise God for your video recorder, eh, Little Father?"
Chiun pinned Remo with a baleful glance. "I will offer no thanks to meddlesome carpenters or to bumbling sons."
"Hey, what's your problem with me all of a sudden?"
"You have displeased Emperor Harold Smith in some way, that he sends us to such barbarous surroundings."
"You may recall that you volunteered to come along," said Remo. "And the trip was my idea, not Smitty's."
"Even worse," Chiun huffed. "No consideration for others. No regard for your frail Father."
"Say," the Cajun interrupted, "is you all related some way?" It was the first time Cuvier had spoken directly to the old Korean. He had shown an extreme reticence toward Chiun since the old Korean gave him a mild traumatic shock by sneaking up on him in his own house.
Chiun made a disgusted sound. "Related?"
"Yes," Remo said.
"No," Chiun insisted.
"We're from the same bloodline," Remo explained.
"We are related as the pigeon is related to the eagle," Chiun clarified.
"Just asking," Cuvier replied, then turned to Remo. "How you figure to go lookin' for the loup-garou?" he asked.
"I thought I'd start with some of your old cronies," Remo said. "They may have an idea who Fortier is using for the contract."
"Best you try another way before you talk to anybody in the family," Cuvier suggested.
"What did you have in mind?"
"You best go see the Gypsies right away, before you get yourself in some kind of mess you can't get out of. They set you straight about the loup-garou."
"Gypsies." It was perfect. Now, if he could only get directions to the good witch of the west, Remo decided he would have it made.
"You be surprised what Gypsies know," said Cuvier. "Might teach you something if you listen close and keep your mouth shut."
"I suppose you know where I can find some, just like that?"
It was the Cajun's turn to smile. "Fact is, I do," he said. "I do indeed."