The Devil's Luck Read online

  “What kind of drugs?”

  “Pot, coke, acid, X, Molly, ‘shrooms…” Q screwed up her face and looked up at the ceiling as if counting in her head. She repeated her list quietly and then said, “But that’s just the people I know. Oh, well, my old bass player snorted Oxy, but he never shared.”

  Jeffries pursed her lips in disgust. “When was the last time you went to one of these parties?”

  “Last Mardi Gras,” she said. “My husband and I went. A couple of my bandmates, too. It was packed as usual. We didn’t stay long.”

  Sanger elbowed her. “Did you behave yourself this year?”

  “Shut up, Aaron,” she said.

  “What did he mean by that?” Jeffries asked.

  “Nothing,” Q said. She scowled at Sanger and mouthed, “Quit it.”

  Sanger shook his head and grinned. “Charlie - the guy that plays trumpet in her band - caught her and her husband being married in Mike Ackerman’s bathroom a few years back.”

  “Knock it off, will you?” Q said. “For the last time, it wasn’t Charlie. It was Pete. And we weren’t married yet. And I can’t believe Charlie’s still telling that lie.”

  Jeffries held up her hand. “Enough.” She slid a mugshot across the table. “You ever see this man at one of these parties or at the store?”

  Q cursed when she saw Urian Galanos’s leering grin look up at her.

  “No, thank god,” she replied, pushing the picture back to the agent.

  “But you do know him,” Jeffries said, folding her arms and studying Q’s reaction.

  “Of course, I know him. But I’m sure you already know that. My old bass player - the one that liked Oxy? Well, he had a bad drug habit. Gambling, too. Urian was his dealer and his bookie. He also helped Sanger rescue me when I was being attacked at the Nine Circles Ball a couple years ago. My band played his wedding last year.” Q mirrored the agent’s posture and folded her arms, too. “He’s a bad penny. I can’t rid of him; he keeps on turning up. But as far as I know, he deals drugs and is big into illegal betting. Maybe he runs the occasional girl. That’s it. That’s the extent of my knowledge of his criminal activity.”

  “And him?” Jeffries slid another mugshot across the table and Q’s eyes flooded.

  “Fuck.” She covered her mouth to keep herself from gasping out loud as JJ’s older brother’s eyes stared up at her from the page. “Rodney couldn’t be involved in anything like this.”

  “How do you know Rodney Augustine?”

  “He’s my current bass player’s older brother. My drummer’s their uncle. I’ve known them since they were kids. Rodney’s sweet and trusting and has a habit of making bad friends. That’s how he ended up in Juvie in the first place. He’s had a hard time going straight ever since. But he’s a good kid.”

  “He works for Galanos. Did you know that?” she asked.

  “No,” Q lied, knowing full well that Rodney had been running dope for Urian for the better part of two years at least.

  “But you know he’s a criminal,” Jeffries said.

  “I know he keeps getting himself into trouble with white cops that like to give young black men a hard time, Agent Jeffries,” Q said, emphatically.

  Evidently, the hand that Jeffries was holding wasn’t any good against the racism card Q just flashed, and she backed down. “Why did you go to the store today?”

  Q replied, “The guitar is my nephew’s eighth-grade graduation present. I haven’t been able to get it because I was on tour and then after Mike died, the store’s been on lockdown. Sanger was over for dinner last night, and I asked him to help me out. We have Sunday dinner with my husband’s family tomorrow and I wanted to give it to him. He thinks Ben and I forgot him. He’s just a kid.”

  “You sure you weren’t trying to hide a little evidence for your friends?”

  “You caught me, Agent Jeffries. That is exactly what I was trying to do. I decided to ask a decorated member of the NOPD to open up the shop under the pretense of retrieving a guitar for a very disappointed fourteen-year-old boy, so that I could stuff a couple dozen illegal guns down my pants. I thought he wouldn’t notice, but, you know… motherfucking super detective over here caught me.”

  Sanger glared at her. “Quit it.”

  Q looked at Jeffries. “Sanger grabbed the wrong case and it had a gun in it. Different Bordelon. We opened the others to see if it was just one; thinking maybe it was a private gun that Mike kept for emergencies, or that he was selling one of his own guns with a guitar or something. When we found the rest, Sanger told me to leave. He didn’t want me around, just in case whoever sold Mike those guns was watching. He didn’t want my name involved. He didn’t want to put me in danger.”

  “Why?”

  Sanger leaned forward. “Call me crazy, Jeffries, but I take the ‘protect’ part of ‘protect and serve’ very seriously. I wasn’t going to endanger a private citizen if I could help it. Clementine’s already been on some bad radar. I didn’t want her to get back on it.”

  “Are you two romantically involved?” Jeffries asked, tilting her head.

  “What in the good fuck does that have to do with this?” Q exclaimed.

  “Answer the question,” Jeffries insisted.

  “She’s married,” Sanger said.

  “That doesn’t answer my question. Are you two romantically involved?”

  “No,” they answered at the same time.

  Sanger rested his elbow on the table and propped his chin in his hand. “Why do you ask, Agent Jeffries? You looking for a date?”

  Q covered her eyes with her hand and started to giggle.

  When Jeffries didn’t respond, Sanger rested back in his chair. “Look, Clementine and I are good friends. Her husband and I are good friends. His sister and I are getting to be even better friends and you’re about to make me late for a very special date with her. I hate to break your heart, but you are exactly one day too late. If you’d arrested me yesterday, maybe we could have worked something out, but now I’m spoken for.”

  Q struggled not to laugh watching Jeffries and Sanger stare each other down to see who would blink first. Sanger won.

  “Y’all are free to go,” Jeffries said. “I’ll be in touch if I have any more questions.”

  They stood up and Q reached for the guitar.

  “This stays with me,” Jeffries said. “It’s evidence.”

  “Please. You don’t understand,” Q pleaded. “I’m finally the favorite auntie and it’s taken years of trying. I had to ask Derek Sharp for a favor to get the kid backstage passes to his favorite band for Christmas and I hate owing that asshole favors. I can’t hand over the title to Grace because of a stupid XBox. I can’t. I’ll never hear the end of it from my husband.”

  Q pulled out her phone and found the video she’d taken of B3 playing the guitar on the day they’d picked it out.

  “Look,” she said. “Look how excited he is.”

  Jeffries paused the video and pointed to the screen.

  “Who’s that?” she asked.

  Q studied the man in the dark suit talking to Mike at the edge of the screen. She shook her head.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Give me the video and I’ll give you the guitar.”

  “Deal,” Q said.

  Jeffries handed her a business card and Q quickly emailed her the video and every picture she’d taken that day with B3 in the Emporium while Sanger was informed that he was expected to share every detail about Mike’s suicide investigation. Judging from the look on his face, all ten of his toes were getting stepped on by the ATF, but if Jeffries noticed, she wasn’t letting on.

  Ten minutes later, Q and Sanger emerged onto Poydras, both blinking against the bright sunshine. She kicked his foot.

  “I like getting arrested with you, Aaron. You’re fun when you’re up to no good.”

  He laughed. “That agent was cute.”

  “Thought you had a special date with Yvie tonight,” she scolded. “Tho
ught you were spoken for.”

  “I am. Just making an observation.”

  “Yeah, I bet, cowboy. Watch yourself. You know whose side I’m on.” As she smiled up at him, she realized the shroud of grief and guilt that had hung from him this past year was no longer clearly visible. “Ok. I’ll bite. What’s got you turning a corner?”

  “Possibilities, Clementine. Possibilities.” He picked her up and kissed her on the mouth before setting her down.

  “Just how long has it been since you’ve gotten any action?” she asked, laughing at the rare occurrence of Sanger’s playfulness.

  They started walking towards the streetcar line. “Getting a little personal, aren’t you?”

  “Answer me, Aaron. I’ve never seen you like this and I want to test a theory,” she replied.

  “And what theory is that?” he asked ruefully.

  “Ben and I made a bet and I need to know if I was right. So, answer the question. How many women have you been with between Tori and Yvie?”

  He glanced at her sideways. “I don’t know. A few.”

  She looked at him in surprise and confusion. “What do you mean, ‘a few’? I thought you didn’t do casual sex, Sanger.” She held up her fingers to put the last sentence in air quotes having heard those words repeatedly from Sanger’s lips.

  “I may have flirted with it for a few months after Tori died. But it isn’t really my thing,” he admitted.

  “And how many times did you engage in this little flirtation?” she asked, disappointed that she’d just lost the bet she’d made with Ben.

  “Like I said, Clementine. A few.”

  “How many is a few, Sanger?”

  “More than a couple, less than a dozen. Stop being so nosey,” he teased. “Did you win your bet?”

  “No,” she pouted. “I thought you’ve been on your own all year. Ben said you probably did just fine without my help. And honestly, after seeing what you did upstairs to that poor federal agent, I’ll never doubt your abilities again.”

  Sanger grinned, looking quite proud of himself. “When did you make that bet with Ben?”

  “I don’t know four, maybe five months ago. Why?”

  “You got played, sister,” he said.

  “The motherfucker knew,” she stated.

  “Of course, he knew. We go to the gym together almost every day. Where do you think I meet most of the women I date?”

  “I don’t like this dynamic, cowboy. How come he gets to know all the fun stuff and I get stuck picking up the pieces of your fucking broken heart?” she demanded.

  “That’s not true. You get to do fun stuff,” he insisted.

  “Like what? Criminal trespass?” She shoved her hands in her pockets, still sulking.

  “Baseball.”

  “Baseball while discussing your broken heart,” she corrected.

  “Manny’s?” he asked.

  “Tacos while discussing your broken heart,” she corrected again.

  “No, you hayseed. Manny’s. Question mark. As in, would you like to have a late lunch at Manny’s, Clementine? Are you hungry?”

  “Yes, actually I am. But I thought you were picking up Yvie for dinner in a couple of hours.”

  “I am, but I’m starving, I can’t wait that long to eat. Come on.” He hailed a cab. “It’s on me. No more broken heart discussions, I promise.”

  They got into the cab and she leaned across the seat to kiss his cheek. “Nice to have you back, cowboy.”

  He grinned at her. “Nice to be back, Clementine.”

  Chapter 6

  Tacos with a Side of Suicide

  They sat on the right side of the U-shaped bar at Manny’s Mexican watching the owner smoke a fresh batch of flavorful brisket through the haze and vague fluorescent lights in the kitchen. Late afternoon sunlight filtered in through the windows at the front of the restaurant. As they were making their way through an intimidating pile of loaded nachos, Q finally told Sanger what she had learned during her partial pedicure.

  Sanger took a drink of his beer. “Still think your whiskey theory is bunk?”

  “More so now than I did this morning,” she said. “Look, Mike was going bankrupt. He was selling guns as a last attempt to get back in the black and got in over his head with Urian. He got high as a kite and killed himself before Urian could beat him to death. Case closed.”

  He gave her a long sideways stare and said, “I do not like what a few weeks of pregnancy did to your level of cynicism.”

  Without warning, she started to cry. She massaged her forehead with her first two fingers, willing the tears back down.

  Sanger took her hand and said, “I’m so sorry, Clementine. I shouldn’t have said that. I should know better than to try to tell a joke.”

  She squeezed his hand. “It’s ok. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just right there all the time. It’ll get better. I’m alright.”

  “You going to try again?” he asked.

  “No. Not for a while. I have those shows with Derek soon, and more tour dates booked. Ben is freaked because I got so sick.”

  “I’m with Ben on that. You looked awful.”

  “Yeah, I felt pretty awful, too,” she agreed. “Next time, we’ll plan for it. I think I was just road weary and it was too much. Kind of like Mike.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mike loved the Emporium. It was his whole life. It wasn’t just a store; it was a community. Bands got formed there. That’s where Pete and I met Tom. People met their spouses there, too. He wouldn’t have willingly let it go for anything. I don’t know why he’d sell guns though. What would even give him the idea?”

  “Gambling,” Sanger suggested. “I’ve been doing some digging because of the drugs nobody seemed to know he did. Mike was a fixture at the horse track. He probably got himself in over his head with Urian. Urian gave him an out.”

  Q cursed. “Man, I hate that dude.”

  “He’s not my favorite person either, but he did save your life,” he reminded her.

  “No, you saved my life. He just undid the corset. You found me.”

  “I don’t know, Clementine. He would have gone after you alone if I hadn’t agreed to come,” Sanger admitted.

  When Q was attacked by a serial killer several years earlier, she’d lost Sanger in the crowd and had begged Urian to go find him. Sanger had known she was in trouble because of the wire he’d given her, but Urian was the insistent messenger telling him to stop waiting for evidence and save Q’s life.

  Not wanting to admit that he was right, Q gave him an annoyed look and he continued, “Blame Urian all you want, but Mike didn’t have to resort to placing illegal bets to save his store either. He could have taken out a loan, downsized…”

  She held up her hand. “He’d done all that. That property is worth a fortune. Half a block on Tchoupitoulas used to be a slum, now it’s prime real estate. Some investment firm is buying up a few blocks of it to build luxury condos. I don’t know why he just didn’t sell it to them. They’re trying to buy the Cove, too, and Ben is even thinking about selling if they get the price right.”

  “Why?” he asked. “I thought business was back up.”

  “It is. It’s booming.” She looked down. “He wants to plan ahead for when we have a family.”

  Sanger saw the sudden grief track across her face and turned her to face him. “It’ll happen, Clementine.”

  “What if I’m defective?”

  He knocked gently on her head with his knuckles. “Up here, maybe, but nowhere else.”

  She laughed. “You’re one to talk.”

  He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to go if I’m going to be on time picking up Yvie. Are you going to be ok?”

  “I’m fine, cowboy. Promise.”

  Sanger paid their bill and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “You sure about that?”

  “Sure, I’m sure. Have fun, Aaron. Try not to be so serious.”

  He smiled at her and she watched him lea
ve.

  Liar, liar pants on fire.

  Q picked at the remains of the loaded nachos Sanger had ordered only to take three bites and decide he was full. Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she saw the word ‘Cincinnati’ flash on the screen. Relieved to have some form of distraction, she answered it, even if it meant she’d have to talk to Derek Sharp for the next ten minutes at least. The front-man and founder of Dark Harm, Derek was well on his way to rock deity status, a fact that was generally the focal point of his self-worth. Despite Q’s objections, or perhaps because of them, Derek continued to press Q to join his band, or in lieu of letting him make her famous, share his bed for a night or two.