"I reckon folks know this coach belongs to Marie Laveau," he commented to the two gunmen. "Most of 'em are pretending they don't even see it."
"Most people in New Orleans have a great deal of respect for Madame Laveau," said the gunman who had done all the talking so far. "You would be wise to do the same, M'sieu Parker."
Longarm nodded and let the curtain fall back into place. Voodoo powers aside, he had plenty of respect for anybody who could command men who handled guns and snakes so well.
The ride was not a long one. St. Anne Street ran from Jackson Square near the riverfront to Beauregard Square several blocks away. The carriage drew to a stop in front of a small, undistinguished cottage less than a block from Beauregard Square. As Longarm and Claudette climbed down, still under the guns of their captors, Claudette nodded toward the square, where most of the grass had been beaten away by the feet of generations, leaving hard-packed dirt behind. "Gran'pere's gran'mama told him of the dances the slaves held there," Claudette said in a low voice. "They call it Congo Square then. Gran'pere see the dance one time when he just a little boy. Say he never forget the drummin' and the chantin' and the singin'. That square a voodoo place, you bet."
Longarm glanced at the open area, which looked innocuous enough in the early morning light, and still felt a chill as he thought about some of the things that might have happened there over all the lost decades.
"Move on," the leader of the gunmen ordered curtly. "No need for you to talk about such things."
They were touchy about their religion, thought Longarm, although according to what Claudette had told him, voodoo was really more of a bastard child of the original beliefs brought over to the West Indies by captured African slaves. He took Claudette's arm and led her up a narrow walk to the front door of the house. The two men followed them closely.
The door opened before Longarm and Claudette reached it. A pretty mulatto girl stood there, and she stepped back silently to let the visitors into the house. As Longarm entered the shadowy dwelling, a pungent, spicy smell came to him, not really unpleasant but quite distinctive. The girl who had let them in shut the door behind the two gunmen, who put their weapons away. Their attitude conveyed clearly the sense that guns were no longer needed.
They were in the presence of a power much greater than gunpowder and lead.
Moving noiselessly on bare feet, the girl led them down a corridor and into a room at the rear of the house. A fireplace with a large mantle stood on one side of the room, and despite the warmth of the morning, a fire was crackling merrily. The room was almost stifling with heat.
But the woman who sat in a large, straight-backed wooden chair near the fireplace was so old that she probably needed the flames to ward off the chill of the years. Longarm stopped, knowing that he was looking at Marie Laveau.
She was small, almost tiny, and made to look even more so by the size of the chair in which she sat. She wore a long gray dress and had a white lace shawl gathered around her bony shoulders. Long white hair fell around her delicate head. Her skin was so pale she could have easily passed for white, and her bloodless pallor made her eyes seem that much darker. She had an air of frailty about her, but those eyes made all the difference in the world, thought Longarm. They shone with power and intelligence.
The girl who had brought them here went to stand just behind Marie Laveau's chair. Now that he could see both of them at the same time, Longarm noted a faint resemblance. The girl was probably Marie Laveau's great-granddaughter, he thought. Then, remembering what Claudette had told him about how far back the memory of the Voodoo Queen went, he revised that estimate and threw in a few more generations.
Marie Laveau spoke, her voice as thin and reedy as the wind. "You are the man called Custis Parker."
It wasn't a question, but Longarm nodded anyway. "Yes, ma'am, I reckon I am."
"But that is a lie," said Marie Laveau. "You are not the man you are pretending to be."
Longarm tried to conceal his surprise. How could this old woman know who he really was?
Unless she had read the truth in a pile of chicken entrails or something like that, a part of his brain yammered at him. He pushed those thoughts far back in his head and asked coolly, "Who do you think I am, ma'am?"
Marie Laveau shook her head. "I do not know... but I will. This one ..." She raised her arm and pointed a claw-like finger at Claudette. "This one came to me on your behalf. I knew her gran'pere, and his gran'mama before him. I know the truth about her. And when she spoke to me of you, I knew that you had not told her the truth."
Claudette looked at Longarm in confusion. He was a mite mixed up himself. Maybe the best way to cut through all this would be to ask some direct questions.
"Did you send some men after me, ma'am? Men who some folks might call zombies?"
Longarm heard a hiss of indrawn breath from the men behind him. Obviously, he was daring a lot by being so blunt with the Voodoo Queen.
Marie Laveau did not seem angered by the question. Instead, she nodded slowly and said, "I sent a man to find you. He had a restless spirit and asked this favor of me. His brother had been killed, and he wished revenge on the men he held responsible."
"Luther..." murmured Longarm, remembering the doorman at the Brass Pelican. His guess that the first zombie might have been Luther's brother had just been confirmed. But he was still puzzled. "Why would anybody blame me for Luther's death? I had just gotten to New Orleans when it happened."
"You went to work for him... for the evil one!"
"You mean Jasper Millard?"
Marie Laveau made a sharp gesture with a hand that was nothing but bone and skin like crepe paper. "Do not speak his name in this house. He has brought much pain and suffering to my people." She looked over Longarm's shoulder at the men who had brought him and Claudette here.
The one who had spoken before stepped forward and said in a low voice, "There are many West Indians here in New Orleans. Some are the descendants of slaves, while others came here since the end of the war. But all know the power of Marie Laveau, and it is to her they have come to tell of men and women who vanish mysteriously in the night."
Longarm looked over at the man. "Vanish?" he repeated. "You mean from some sort of magic spell?"
"I mean they are kidnapped and forced into slavery by evil men!"
Longarm drew a deep breath. "Well, if that don't beat all," he said slowly. "So that's what this is all about."
Claudette still looked confused. Hoping to clear up a few things for her--and get them straight in his own mind at the same time--he turned back to Marie Laveau and went on. "The fella you call the evil one, he's kidnapping folks here in New Orleans and shipping 'em back to the Caribbean where their ancestors came from in the first place, isn't he? Slavery's still legal in some of those little island nations--like Saint Laurent." Marie Laveau nodded solemnly.
"That's why Millard's men loaded that cargo on those ships of his in the middle of the night and didn't let the regular dockworkers near them," continued Longarm. "It was human cargo."
"Human cargo bound for the sugar plantation of the man who works with the evil one," said Marie Laveau.
"Paul Clement," Longarm said through gritted teeth. Clement was just as crooked as Millard, was in fact his business partner.
Longarm hoped that Annie wasn't in the scheme up to her pretty neck as well.
"Why come after me?" he asked. "Just because I work for... well, you know who I work for."
"You were to be brought here to me," explained the Voodoo Queen. "You would have been placed under my control and sent back to the evil one, so that we would know his plans."
"You were going to make a spy out of me. I'd've wound up a zombie."