"What it is," Merle Bettencourt went on, "is about that last man on the list you were supposed to handle for us."
It sounded like a question, but he didn't think it was, so Leon sat and waited.
"We need to get that job took care of right away, soon as you can," said Bettencourt. "And there's another thing come up just recently. Some guy been askin' around about you, like maybe he was lookin' for you."
Leon knew that, too, but he wouldn't reveal his knowledge to this stranger. He would deal with it in his own way and time.
"You hear me, Leon?" From the pinched expression on his face, Merle Bettencourt couldn't decide if he was puzzled or pissed off by Leon's silence.
"Yeah," the loup-garou replied. There was no reason he could think of to elaborate.
"Okay, then." Bettencourt relaxed a bit, but he was frowning. "Just one other little thing. About these Gypsies, now. What the hell is that about?" Leon considered his reply, took more time than most men would have required, since conversation was a lost art in his world. He knew exactly what he meant to say, but picking words to spell it out required some study.
"Friend of mine told me they askin' questions about my business," Leon said at last. "Which by, I mean your business, too."
One of the Cajun mobster's eyebrows crinkled in surprise. "That so?"
"What I was told."
"Who say that?" Bettencourt inquired.
"This Gypsy. I been knowin' him some time."
"You trust him?"
Leon shrugged at that. "He scared of me. Come told me what he seen."
"And you took care of that?" asked Bettencourt.
"I think so. Shook them up, at least."
"I'm wonderin' if maybe they mixed up with this old boy I told you about," the Cajun mobster said. "They mention him at all?"
"They didn't tell me nothin'," Leon said, as if it should be obvious. "Just scream and bleed is all."
"Uh-huh."
The mobster glanced at his gorillas, left and right, but both of them were staring at the wolf man, fingers on their gun hands twitchy with the urge to draw and fire. Leon imagined he could rip their throats out if they tried.
"Best watch out while you handlin' that job we talk about." said Bettencourt. "See maybe if you can't take out this other guy. Clean up the whole damn thing."
"I'll keep an eye out," Leon said.
"Do that," said Bettencourt. After a brief silence, he said, "I guess that's all."
Leon didn't see the signal, but the limo's door was opened by the outside man, as if on cue. Leon was half out of the car when Bettencourt called after him, "And finish up that job right quick, you hear?"
Outside, the freaks were still in charge. Leon felt more at home with them than he had with the "normals" in the limousine, and he didn't look back to see if they were watching him as he began the walk back to his van.
Chapter 12
"Another expert?" Remo kept his voice down, leaning in toward Cuvier so that Aurelia couldn't hear him from the bathroom, where she had retired to freshen up. "I'm getting tired of these side trips to nowhere."
"Jamie knows all about them loups-garous," the witness answered, sounding peevish. "You just wait and see."
"And you just thought of it?"
"He slipped my mind," said Cuvier, defensively, "with all the shit been goin' on."
"Uh-huh."
Remo glanced back at Chiun and found the Master of Sinanju Emeritus sitting three feet from the television, watching one of Reverend Rockwell's infomercials, piety and politics mixed up into a gumbo that was hard to swallow. Remo wondered what Chiun was gleaning from it, and decided it was better not to ask.
"Where are you going this time?" Chiun inquired when he was halfway to the door.
Remo could feel the angry color in his cheeks as he replied, "I have to see a man about a wolf."
It took him half an hour, winding through the crowded streets on foot, to find the address he was looking for. A block off Charles and up a narrow flight of stairs that smelled like mold or urine. He knocked and waited, knocked again and was about to leave when he heard footsteps on the other side. A little trapdoor opened to reveal one bloodshot eye. "What you want?"
"Jamie Lafite?"
"What you want?" the owner of the eye repeated. "I was sent here by a friend of yours, Jean Cuvier. He figured you could help me find a certain loup-garou."
The small hatch on the peephole slammed shut in a heartbeat, and he heard the tenant fumbling with some half-dozen locks and chains. The door creaked open seconds later, showing half a pallid face and one arm beckoning for Remo to come in. No sooner had he crossed the threshold onto threadbare, mousy-colored carpet than the door was closed again behind him, chains and latches rattling into place.
"You can't just talk about loup-garou like that, where anyone can hear you!"
Christ, he thought, another Cajun. This one seemed to be in his late thirties, but it was impossible to tell with any certainty. He had the waxy pale complexion of a movie vampire, evidence that he was rarely caught outside in daylight, and his long hair was parted in the middle, hanging down on both sides of his face in dusty-looking dreadlocks. He was anemic looking, skinny even by the standards of the modern diet generation.
"Jamie Lafite?"
"That's right. Who sent you here?"
"Jean Cuvier."
The pale man blinked. "Thought he was dead."
"Not yet."
The small apartment looked like something from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It had been weeks, or maybe months, since anyone had dusted, and the furniture had all the charm of cast-off items from a going-out-of-business sale at a Salvation Army thrift shop. All except the coffee table, which appeared to be a coffin, decorated with a pair of mismatched candlesticks. The centerpiece, a plastic human skull, was painted gray to make it seem more natural. "Nice place."
"I did it all myself."
"It shows."
"How you know Jean?" Lafite inquired.
"I'm looking out for him right now," said Remo. "He's in danger."
"Tell me something I don't know."
Remo considered giving him the address for House Beautiful and then decided not to push his luck. "I need to find the people who are after him. The werewolf and his buddies. Got his address?"
"Loup-garou ain't people," said Lafite. "You need to get that notion out of your head right now. But they like us, in some ways. All different, see? Some got more power than others. All the more you know about what you huntin', that one special loup-garou, the better chance you got of killing them."
"I don't know all that much," said Remo, "but I'm told he lives around New Orleans somewhere, and his first name may be Leon."
"Leon!" the pale man exclaimed when he regained a vestige of composure. "Leon Grosvenor, that has to be."
"You know him?"
"I know of him," the scrawny Cajun said. "Ain't nobody really knows a loup-garou, except maybe them he's killed. For Jean's sake, I can tell you this much on the house. Some people say Leon was born with powers of the loup-garou. That make him stronger, see? Not like the ones what have to sing the songs and beg for help. Ol' Leon had it goin' in."
"That's it?"
"They lots of stories go around," Lafite went on. "Some of them contradict the other. One say Leon killed and ate his mama, but another say folks took one look at them and left them on the bayou, sink or swim. Don't make no difference after thirty, forty years, whatever. Thing you gotta remember is that Leon's had a lifetime to find out what he can do." Remo considered that. A lifetime? Leon had always been this way? That didn't fit into the puzzle he was building in his head. "Leon only started working for the local bosses recently," he observed. Lafite got more nervous and his eyes twisted from side to side. "Leon came into his own. Not sure how or why. He offered up his services and did a free job. And he did it real good. That's when he went on the payroll."