I need an angle, Reverend Rockwell decided, and this time he caught himself before he spoke the words aloud. Instead, he spoke a name.
"Merle Bettencourt."
"Sir?" Jerry Smeal was visibly confused.
"Still praying, Jerry," Rockwell informed his aide. "Never you mind."
THE GYPSY CAMP WAS situated three miles south of town, outside Westwego, with the stagnant bayou close enough that Remo smelled it even with his windows rolled up tight and the air-conditioning on high. There was a dead snake in the middle of the highway, seedy strip malls off to either side, and Remo wondered where it had been going when its time ran out.
He hadn't asked how Cuvier knew where the Gypsies would be found. They were supposed to drift around the countryside, and since the Cajun had been up in Omaha for something like a year, presumably without connections to his former stomping grounds, it puzzled Remo. Still, he let it go. He had enough things on his mind, werewolves included, without trying to discover if his witness was a closet psychic.
In the old days, he had been led to believe, the roving Gypsies packed their lives in horse-drawn wagons, gaily painted, drifting aimlessly from town to town as they told fortunes, read the tarot cards, picked pockets, rustled livestock-anything, in fact, that would keep money flowing in without the grim necessity of taking honest work. There had been Gypsies in New Jersey, back in Remo's former life. He had arrested one of them for swindling senior citizens, some kind of scam involving eggs and evil spirits. No one in the suspect's family had seemed especially resentful of the bust. It was like weather, something you could never really change.
These Gypsies had progressed from horse and wagon to an ancient school bus painted green, with different-colored swirls resembling psychedelic cloud formations on the sides and rear. He was reminded of the sixties and a song about a magic bus, some kind of acid groove, but quickly pushed the reminiscence out of mind. Behind the bus, an old VW van sat on the shoulder of the road, more primer gray than any other hue, and there were three mopeds lined up behind the van.
Beyond the bus, an open field lay in between the highway and the swamp. The Gypsies had a campfire going, and a mismatched pair of portable barbecue grills was producing aromatic smoke that almost canceled out the rank smell of the swamp. Almost.
The kids saw Remo first as he pulled up behind the mopeds, killed his engine, stepping from the Blazer. There were six or seven of them, Remo was sure, plus three apparent teenagers, and better than a dozen adults, ranging from late twenties to a crone of seventy or eighty. By the time he cleared the van and started to approach them, they were all aware of Remo, and he could have sworn that other eyes were following his progress, from the van, the bus or both.
Must be damn crowded when they're on the road, he thought, and then dismissed the thought as being of no consequence.
As Remo neared the fire, a forty-something Gypsy with a fierce mustache stepped out to intercept him. He was dressed in a bright red shirt with bishop sleeves, long collar points and shiny buttons, black pants resembling jodhpurs and riding boots that gleamed like patent leather, fitted out with silver buckles on the sides. His neck and hands were bright with gold, including rings on six of his eight fingers. As the gap between them lessened, Remo noticed that the Gypsy's left eye was possessed of a nervous tic that made it blink and twitch, as if the orb were trying to escape its socket.
"You have business with my family?" the Gypsy front man asked, with twenty feet between them. Remo nodded toward the teenagers and tots. "All yours?"
Broad shoulders rolled inside the crimson shirt.
"Some mine, all Romany," the Gypsy said. "I think you didn't come here for no genealogy."
"You must be psychic," Remo offered, but the joke fell flat. "The fact is, I was told... I mean to say I'm hoping you can help with some information."
The Gypsy smiled and stroked the side of his nose with a nicotine-stained index finger. "You are looking for New Orleans, yes? You must go back the way you came."
Strike one on fortune-telling, Remo thought. He said, "It's not directions, Mr.... ?"
"Ladislaw," the Gypsy said. No telling if it was his first name or his last.
"Well, Mr. Ladislaw-"
"King Ladislaw," the walleyed man corrected him.
Remo let that one pass. "I'm looking for a different kind of information. I'm not sure-"
"About your future, yes?" The Gypsy's smile increased in wattage, pearly whites on bold display. "You come to the right place, all right. The Romany have powers. But, of course, it is no easy thing. We must-"
"It's not about my future," Remo told him, interrupting the sales pitch. "I need to ask about ...well, um, a loup-garou."
The Gypsy lost his smile as if someone had wiped it from his dark face with a washcloth. Remo watched his left eye jiggle for a moment, dancing to a different beat, before both pupils locked like gun sights on his face.
"Who sent you here?" King Ladislaw demanded. "You said someone told you to come here."
"Slip of the tongue?" Remo suggested.
"Now you lie."
"Okay, you're right. It was a Cajun friend of mine," he told the Gypsy, stretching the relationship. "I'm not at liberty to give his name, but I can tell you that he wishes you no harm. I'm not with the police or-"
"Why should Romany have fear of the police?" asked Ladislaw, his bad eye veering sharply north-northwest.
"No reason I can think of," Remo said. "Let's just forget it, shall we? My friend was obviously wrong."
He turned to leave, but barely took a step before King Ladislaw called out to him, "You stop!" Remo turned back to face the Gypsy, waiting.
"You say this friend of yours is a Cajun?" Remo nodded, kept his mouth shut, waiting. Ladislaw reached up to tap his own forehead, above the jerky eye. "Is he a special man, this friend?"
"I doubt it," Remo answered frankly. "If he had the power and knowledge, I suppose he wouldn't send me here, to you."
The Gypsy's left eyelid came down, as if to better study Remo without interference from the rebel orb. "You are a wise man, I believe."
"I know an old Korean who would disagree."
"Excuse me?"
"Forget it. Can you help me?"
Ladislaw had found his smile again. "My eldest daughter has considerable knowledge of such matters. She is, how you say?" The Gypsy raised a hand and tapped his head again.
"Brunette?" Remo suggested.
"Sensitive!" King Ladislaw seemed pleased that he was able to recall the word. "Of course, it still requires great effort, sometimes pain. For something dangerous, like loup-garou, two hundred dollars."
It was Remo's turn to smile. "I'm after information, not the pelt," he said. "I'll give you fifty down, and match it afterward if I'm completely satisfied."
The Gypsy king seemed infinitely pained, but he was clearly in his element, adept at dickering. "For such a risk," he said, "one-fifty is the best that I can do."
Remo considered it, deciding what the hell. It was CURE's money, anyway, and fifty bucks was nothing to the organization that had eluded government auditors for decades on end.
"Half down," he said.
"A deal!" King Ladislaw relieved him of the cash and led him to the former school bus, where the back door-once reserved for exit in emergencies-now stood ajar.
"Step in, my friend," the Gypsy said, "and learn what you must know. I only hope you do not see too much."
Chapter 8
The windows in the rear part of the bus were painted over, but some fading daylight spilled in through the open doorway, and the space inside was lit with candles. Remo counted twelve candles while he was waiting for his eyesight to adjust, examining the portion of the bus that had been artfully converted to a kind of sitting room. The rug beneath his feet was clean and looked handwoven. Furniture consisted of some large embroidered pillows in the place of chairs, with a low table just in front of him, standing ankle high. Remo was put in mind of certain geisha houses he had visited ...until he saw the girl.