Luther, the former doorman at the Brass Pelican. Luther, who had been murdered two nights earlier by Royale's men.
Longarm had almost had the life choked out of him by a walking dead man.
CHAPTER 9
For a moment, there was a part of Longarm that wanted to drop the match and run like hell. He knew now why Billy Vail had asked him if he was superstitious. The voodoo angle to this case had sort of faded into the background as Longarm got caught up in investigating the rival smuggling rings headed by Jasper Millard and the mysterious Royale.
But it had just poked its ugly head into things again, sure enough, because Longarm was staring down in horror at an honest-to-God zombie.
Or was he?
The rational part of Longarm's brain began to reassert itself. He recalled how Luther had stumbled into the Brass Pelican, gut-shot by Royale's men. The body sprawled on its back in the street had a huge bloodstain on its midsection where Longarm had emptied the Colt into it. That matched Luther's stomach wound, of course, but how could a man who had been dead for over forty-eight hours bleed that much?
But then, how could a man who had been dead for over forty-eight hours be wandering around the streets of NewOrleans and trying to murder federal lawmen? Longarm gave a little shake of his head, trying to keep his mind from wandering too far off down dark paths.
Quickly, before the match went out, Longarm holstered his gun and reached down to grasp the dead man's shoulder. There was one sure test. He had seen Luther shot at nearly point-blank range in the back of the head by one of Royale's men. With a grunt of effort, Longarm heaved the massive corpse onto its side. He held the match closer to the back of the dead man's skull.
There was no bullet hole, no sign of a wound of any kind. With a sigh of relief, Longarm let go of the body and let it slump onto its back again.
So this dead man wasn't Luther after all. He just looked a hell of a lot like the doorman from the Brass Pelican.
Which still didn't answer the question of why he had been trying to kill Longarm... or why he had shuffled along the way he had... or why he had fought in complete silence and stood up for so long against the impact of five slugs from a.44.
Zombie. The word echoed in Longarm's brain.
Grimacing, he shook out the match just before it could burn his fingers and backed away from the body. He turned around and found his hat, picking it up and putting it on as he walked quickly along the street. He headed away from Decatur Street and soon found himself on Chartres Street. The mansion where Annie and Paul Clement lived when they were visiting New Orleans wasn't far from where he was, he realized. He wondered how they would react if he knocked on their door in the cold gray light of dawn and told them he'd just had a run-in with a walking dead man. They'd probably try to have him locked up in an asylum somewhere.
Maybe that was where he belonged. He had always been a rational, pragmatic, even hardheaded man. Carrying a badge made a fella that way. Now here he was thinking all sorts of wild thoughts, considering possibilities that he never would have dreamed he would consider.
There had to be an explanation. There just had to be.
But as he made his way back to the St. Charles Hotel by a roundabout route, he was damned if he could think of what it might be.
He slept the sleep of exhaustion--slept like a dead man, he told himself wryly when he woke up in the middle of the afternoon--but he didn't feel particularly rested. When he showed up at the Brass Pelican after a meal and several cups of strong black coffee, he felt a little better, but the bartender who was working behind the mahogany took one look at him and said, "Lord, you look like death warmed over, Mr. Parker."
Longarm rubbed his jaw and said hoarsely, "Didn't figure I looked that good."
"You coming down with the grippe? I can fix up a tonic for that."
Longarm shook his head. "No, I just... strained my throat, I reckon you could say. It's getting better, but thanks anyway."
"Well, if you change your mind, just let me know."
This fella was a lot friendlier than the one who had unlocked the door for Longarm the day before. Of course, the club was open for business now, so that might have had something to do with his helpful attitude. Longarm looked around the big room. There were quite a few customers drinking and gambling, though not nearly as many as there would be later.
He turned back to the bar and said, "I could use a cup of coffee. And put a dollop of Tom Moore in it."
"Coming right up, Mr. Parker."
When he had first gotten up, Longarm had barely been able to talk at all, and swallowing had been hell. But the muscles in his bruised throat had loosened up, and hot coffee seemed to help the soreness. He was only a little hoarse now, and the discomfort was tolerable. It could have been a lot worse.
He could have been dead, like that poor son of a bitch he'd had to shoot.
The more he thought about it, the more he wondered if the fella had been drugged. In the horror of the night before, Longarm hadn't really considered that possibility. It made more sense than believing in voodoo and zombies, though. Longarm recalled seeing Chinese hatchet men who had smoked so much opium that they might not have noticed right away if somebody emptied a Colt into their bellies.
Maybe Royale had sent the gigantic black man after him. Maybe that was just a new weapon in the war against Millard and anybody who worked for him.
Longarm sipped the coffee the bartender brought to him, feeling the bracing effect of the Maryland rye that had been added to it. He turned to the man and asked, "Where's Mr. Millard? Back in the office?"
The bartender took out his watch and glanced at it. "He's probably upstairs. He usually takes one of the girls up to his room about this time of day, if you know what I mean."
Longarm did indeed. Some men liked their loving on a regular schedule.
Carrying the coffee cup, Longarm wandered around the room, watching the players at the poker tables, the blackjack tables, the roulette wheel, and the faro bank. Not a lot of money was changing hands. The really big players, like Paul Clement, usually showed up at night. For a while, he sat down at an empty table and sipped the rest of the coffee, then got up and walked rather aimlessly toward the door that led to the rear hallway. No one challenged him as he slipped through it and headed for Millard's office.
He hoped that Millard was also a man who liked to take his time when bedding a woman, because Longarm intended to have a look in the office and see what he could find.
The corridor was empty. Longarm checked the knob of the office door, and found it unlocked. He rapped lightly on the panel, and when he got no response, opened the door silently and stepped into the office.
The lamp on Millard's desk was turned down low, but it was lit. Longarm didn't know if that meant Millard would be back soon or not. He eased the door shut behind him, then stepped quickly to the desk. Unless he knew better, he was going to assume there was no time to waste.
Longarm had searched desks before, and he made fast work of this one. He found nothing unusual at first, just the typical paperwork that went with any legitimate business. And for New Orleans, the Brass Pelican was a legitimate business. It was Millard's smuggling activities that put him on the wrong side of the law.
Longarm also found a couple of pistols, a Bowie knife, a bottle of cognac like the one he had shared with Millard and the Clements on his first night in the Crescent City, and a smaller bottle of dark brown glass. It had a cork stopper in its neck, and when Longarm pulled it and took a sniff, he recognized the heavy, sweetish smell of laudanum. With a grimace, he replaced the cork and put the bottle back in the drawer where he had found it.