"Damn it!"
That glimpse had been enough to tell him that the men who were out for his scalp were piling into another cab, one they had stopped on the street at gunpoint. Longarm saw them jerking the cab's previous occupants and the driver out of the vehicle. One of the killers was going to handle the reins himself, more than likely. Then Longarm couldn't see any more, because the corner of the hotel cut off his view.
The gunmen weren't going to give up as easily as he had hoped. Longarm reached up and tapped the driver on the shoulder. The man cast a glance that was wide-eyed with fear at his unexpected passengers.
"Keep going as fast as you can!" shouted Longarm. "Head for the city hall! I'm a lawman!"
The driver bobbed his head and whipped the horses that much harder. Longarm was thrown against the rear seat as the cab lurched forward.
A bullet spanged off the metalwork beside him. "Look out, Custis!" screamed Annie.
Longarm swiveled his head and looked behind them. The other cab had taken the corner even tighter, and was now racing after them. He saw muzzle flashes from the guns of the men who worked for Clement and Millard. Since Annie was already sitting on the floorboard, he told her, "Stay down there!"
Looking forward again, he saw that the cab was approaching the riverfront. If the driver took a left when he reached the docks, that would bring them back to Decatur Street in a few blocks, and then they would reach the city hall within minutes. Longarm wanted to get Annie into the safety of the building and find that special prosecutor's office. There would be plenty of work for the man once Longarm laid out the story.
In the meantime, as he crouched on the floor of the cab next to Annie, he shucked the spent shells from his Colt and thumbed in fresh ones. Maybe he could slow down the pursuit, although he would have to be careful not to hit any pedestrians or other innocent bystanders along the street. Longarm raised himself up and lined the Colt's sights on the cab that was chasing them.
Before he could fire, a bullet sang past his ear, and he heard a grunt of pain. Annie screamed. Longarm jerked around, afraid that she had been hit. Instead, he saw that the driver of the cab was half-standing, clawing at his back where the bullet had caught him. With a groan, he toppled backward, landing upside down on the floorboards next to Annie. He was either unconscious or dead.
Longarm didn't have time to find out which, because the team pulling the cab was still running flat out--straight toward the Mississippi River.
Biting back a curse, Longarm clambered over the driver's body and scrambled over the front seat toward the driver's box. He looked desperately for the reins and saw them dangling over the front of the box. He made a frantic grab for them, but they slid out of his reach, falling under the hooves of the racing horses.
If someone didn't stop those animals or turn them aside, Longarm realized, they were going to run right into the river in about thirty seconds. He threw a glance back at the pursuers. They were still there, only they had closed the gap a little. Bullets were still thudding into the cab.
There was only one thing to do, Longarm told himself as the runaway cab crossed the street that ran alongside the river. The hooves of the horses thundered on the planks of a short dock as Longarm balanced himself and then leaped forward, intending to land on the back of one of the leaders so that he could at least use the harness to pull the team to a stop before the cab plunged into the river.
He was in midair before he realized that the attempt had come just a little too late.
Then they were at the end of the dock and the horses and the cab were falling out from underneath him and he was falling too, and Annie was screaming and the waters of the mighty Mississippi came up and slammed into him, wrapping around him and pulling him down into the deepest darkness he had ever known in his life.
He was cold when he woke up, so cold that he thought he would never again be warm. The chattering of his teeth told him that he was still alive. A dead man couldn't feel like this--or so Longarm assumed. But then the thought struck him that maybe he was dead. Maybe what he was experiencing was the coldness of the grave.
And the fact that he was aware of the sensation meant that he was being brought back to a mere shambling semblance of life. He was being turned into a zombie!
The cry burst from his lips before he could stop it, and he heard an ugly chuckle from somewhere nearby. "Waking up, Parker--or whatever your name really is?"
The question came from Jasper Millard.
Someone else was close by. Longarm felt icy fingers clutching at his hand. The fingers of a corpse? No, they weren't that cold, he decided, and they had the strength and vitality of life as well.
"Custis! Please wake up, Custis. I thought you were dead."
Longarm's eyes fluttered open. "A-Annie?" he croaked out.
Her face swam into his line of sight, filling his vision as she leaned closely above him. Her hair was wild and damp, and there was a fresh bruise on her face. But she still looked beautiful to Longarm, because she was alive and that meant he was alive too.
The real question was how long that would hold true for each of them.
His vision had cleared enough for him to be able to look up past her and see a wooden roof high overhead. As she babbled her gratitude that he was still among the living, her voice echoed hollowly, and Longarm realized now that Millard's words had had a definite echo too. They were in a large room somewhere--not the Brass Pelican, Longarm decided. Someplace else.
"I think we should just go ahead and shoot him right here and now. He's bound to be a lawman."
That was Millard's voice again, booming out its threat. Someone answered him in a smoother, more sophisticated tone. "No, it will be much more effective to feed him to the alligators. Perhaps part of his body will be found too, and send a message to the authorities." Paul Clement, thought Longarm. That son of a bitch.
"Yeah, like we sent a message with that other badge-toting snooper? It was bad enough that all of his corpse didn't get eaten, but then you had to go and leave that voodoo doll on his boss's doorstep. I don't like messing with that voodoo shit, and besides, it just stirred up the law that much more."
"I believed it would confuse the issue enough to throw off any investigation into Ramsey's death," Clement replied coldly. "I did what I thought was best, Jasper--and you should remember whose idea our arrangement was in the first place."
"Yeah, yeah," replied Millard in a surly tone. "You're a damn genius, all right."
"I've made us a great deal of money so far. The other plantation owners on Saint Laurent and the neighboring islands are quite happy to meet our price for the workforce we provide."
Their squabbling had confirmed all of Longarm's speculations and answered all the questions that had brought him to New Orleans. The knowledge wasn't going to do him a hell of a lot of good, though, unless he could somehow get away from his captors and find some help.
While Millard and Clement were talking, Annie had been stroking Longarm's face and huddling against him in fear. He was aware now that he was soaking wet and lying on a hard floor. Probably no more than half an hour had passed since the runaway cab had plunged into the river; based on that fact, the high ceiling, the shadows that filled the big room, and the likely proximity to the riverfront, he figured they were in a warehouse. Millard probably owned at least one such building, so that he could store the goods he smuggled into New Orleans until he had a chance to dispose of them.
A warehouse would be a good place to hold prisoners who were destined to be shipped out to the West Indies and a life of slavery on the sugar plantations too. Longarm wondered if there were any such captives here now, or if he and Annie were the only prisoners.
There was only one way to find out. His hands weren't tied, he realized, so he got them under him and pushed himself into a sitting position.