"I'm looking for a loup-garou," Remo said, cutting through the small talk.
Etienne DuBois allowed himself a crooked grin, the pale scar crinkling like rubber.
"You got a better chance a findin' one out there," the Cajun said, and pointed with his free hand toward the street. "Most anything you want will be out there tonight."
"I wouldn't be surprised," Remo said, moving closer to the Cajun, "but I'm looking for the real thing, not a fake."
DuBois's smile did a flip and wound up as a frown. "You're drunk or a crazy one, my friend," he said. "Somebody needs to check you out or something, you go looking for a real-life loup-garou."
"You don't believe in werewolves?"
"Not since I'm old enough to know better," the Cajun said.
"That's funny."
"Funny how?"
"Well, see, the thing is, I was told your boss man had a loup-garou he uses for his special jobs." The frown was gone now, too. Its passing left the Cajun's face deadpan.
"This place you standing in belongs to me," he said. "I got no boss man."
"Well, damn, I must've got it wrong, then. You don't work for Armand Fortier? Or maybe Bettencourt, now that the big guy's in Atlanta?"
"Don't guess I recognize those names."
"Uh-huh. It couldn't be that you sustained brain damage, could it, when that hog was chewing on your head?"
"You best get out a here right now," the Cajun said.
"We haven't finished talking."
"Oh, yeah, we finished," said DuBois. "You just don't know it yet."
He swung the heavy walking stick with force enough to split a watermelon-or a skull-but Remo saw it coming five minutes before it would have hit him. Remo brought up his right arm casually and allowed it to take the impact. The cane snapped and the broken-off piece spun aimlessly across the shop.
"Strike one," he said. "What say we keep talking as I suggested? 'Cause if that's the best you've got..."
DuBois was staring at him, features doubly puckered by the scar and a peculiar frown, still clutching half a cane. The broken end was lighter than the outer layer of wood by several shades, reminding Remo of a tree branch snapped off in a storm.
The scar-faced Cajun did not try to swing his shortened cane a second time. Instead, he jabbed the broken end toward Remo's face, as if to gouge an eye or plug the stranger's mocking mouth.
Remo grasped the wrist behind the cane and twisted, feeling wrist bones snap and dislocate. DuBois gave out a squealing cry of pain that fit his nickname and released the walking stick before he sprawled, headfirst, into a drum set standing in the middle of the floor.
"Strike two," Remo said when the Cajun had retrieved enough of his disjointed wits to understand the spoken word. "You're out on three, so make it good."
DuBois leaned on a cymbal when he tried to rise, but it spun out from under him and dumped him on his backside. Favoring his shattered wrist and crippled leg, he eventually tottered to his feet.
"Who sent you?" he demanded.
Remo answered with a question of his own. "It doesn't really matter, does it? You can talk to me, or you can have the worst night of your life. The last night."
Etienne DuBois was staring at him, gripping his right arm in his left hand while leaning back against a long plate-glass display case filled with cameras, watches, compact radios. The Cajun shot a quick glance toward the windows and the teeming street beyond, but it was hopeless. No one in the Quarter would have rushed to help him on an ordinary day, and Mardi Gras was in full swing, legitimizing aberrant behavior for the next two days.
"These things you ask about," the Cajun said at last, "they get me dead."
"You're dead already, Ham. My way, at least you get a running start."
"Hey, where you learn that kung-fu shit?"
"My father taught me," Remo said. "And if he heard you calling it 'kung fu' even I wouldn't be able to save you. Quit stalling, now. You want to talk or dance?"
"That loup-garou you ask about, I think you don't believe me if I told you."
"Try me out," said Remo. "You may be surprised."
Chapter 10
It was a fluke that Fortier's gorillas ever caught a glimpse of Remo, but a fluke was all it took sometimes. He was emerging from Ham's Hock Shop when he met another caller coming in. The man was five foot two or three, built like a fireplug, with the bullet head to match. He wore a suit so shiny it was almost iridescent, but without a tie. His oily black hair was combed back from his sallow face in a lopsided pompadour. His sideburns would have set the King to spinning in his grave from envy.
Remo brushed on past the sawed-off thug, confirming with a feather touch that he was packing heat. Intent on getting out of there and merging with the crowd, he didn't spare the shop a backward glance until he heard the cow bell clank again and a gruff voice shouted, "Grab that guy!"
He had his adversaries pegged and counted in two seconds flat. Besides the fireplug, now emerging from the shop with murder in his eyes, three others were hanging back, clustered beneath a balcony where a young woman turned her shapely backside to the crowd and proved she was a natural redhead. The three goons heard their comrade shouting, followed his accusing index finger to the spot where Remo stood, and moved as one to cut him off.
The vast, amorphous organism of the crowd engulfed him, sucked him in, reminding Remo of The Blob, with Steve McQueen. This was a different kind of monster, though: more complex, yet more simple-minded, oozing through the Quarter without seeming purpose, fueled by alcohol, randomly shedding cells on every side, absorbing new ones to replace those lost. A man could get lost in a crowd like that and evade his enemies.
Remo didn't want to get lost.
Of course, he'd prefer not getting any revelers shot. Especially all those friendly college coeds. Remo had no idea where he was going, other than away from Ham's Hock Shop and Jackson Avenue. He wouldn't lead the shooters back to his hotel. Remo slipped and slid through the crowd heading westward, leading his pursuers through the crowd, giving them the occasional glimpse to keep up their enthusiasm. His adversaries pushed and bullied their way through the crush of gaudy costumed bodies.
Fireplug had glimpsed the shop in ruins, maybe spotted Etienne DuBois behind the counter sleeping off the nerve pinch Remo gave him when he had run out of useful information.
Remo assumed the goons were Cajun Mafia, soldiers of Armand Fortier and his lieutenant, Bettencourt. They wouldn't relish going home without an explanation for the ruckus at Ham's Hock Shop, and the best thing they could hope for was to bag the culprit, take him with them when they went back to report.
On tiptoes he could make out a surge of motion through the crush, heads bobbing, bodies rippling as the spearhead of pursuit drove past them. It reminded Remo of snake-hunting in tall grass, the way you had to watch for subtle movement in the grass, because your prey remained invisible.
A mounted cop came out of nowhere, surging through the crush, proceeding in the general direction of the goons who hunted Remo. Had he seen them from his higher vantage point and known that something was amiss? Would he chastise them for their rude behavior, shoving through the crowd?
Then the cop veered off course, proceeding toward the distant outskirts of the mob. On that side of the street, a woman who resembled Shelley Winters in a Dolly Parton wig was dancing naked on a balcony, the sight of so much cellulite in motion making Remo vaguely ill. The mounted cop seemed bent on stopping her, an effort that evoked mixed cheers and booing from the audience.
"That's gotta be a felony," Remo muttered, and began moving through the press of bodies again, searching for a place where he could confront the goons without endangering the revelers.
From Ham DuBois he had gleaned a first name, bits and pieces of a story that could still be crap, despite the fact that his informant seemingly believed it. Remo needed more, and he was hoping that the four punks on his tail could add a few more bytes of information.
Remo began negotiating his way through the crush, moving inexorably toward the north side of the street. The human current had already passed Desire House, drawing Remo and his tail toward the terminus of Tchoupitoulas Street at Jefferson Avenue, with Audubon Park just beyond. South of Tchoupitoulas, the Mississippi River snaked its way along the outskirts of the Crescent City, dividing New Orleans proper from the suburbs of Westwego, Harvey, Gretna and Marrero. Narrow side streets had their own block parties going on, no respite from the crowd, and even alleyways were populated with partiers whose costumes mingled 1950s horror movies and sci-fi with all the trappings of a modernday Gay Pride parade.
Ten minutes after leaving Ham's Hock Shop, he found what he was looking for. It wasn't perfect, but he would find nothing better at this end of Tchoupitoulas Street.