Every respectable hypnotist in New Orleans had long since locked his or her office and gone home. Which left only the unrespectable ones.
Using the phone book attached by a metal cord to the pay phone in the Crab Shack’s lobby, Tobie found a woman named Sister Simone who worked out of a second floor walkup in the French Quarter. Her ad read: FORTUNES TOLD. PALMS READ. PAST LIFE REGRESSIONS. WALK-INS WELCOME.
“You can’t be serious,” said Jax, peering over her shoulder at the entry.
She glanced back at him. “If she does past life regressions, she must be a hypnotist.”
“The woman’s a charlatan.”
“That doesn’t mean she can’t hypnotize people.”
Jax was sipping a gin and tonic in a bar on Bourbon Street when Matt called him.
“Hey, Jax. I’ve got something for you.”
Jax turned his back on the noisy, crowded room. “What is it?”
“Jax? I can hardly hear you. Where are you?”
Jax cupped his hand over the phone. “Where am I? I’m sitting at the window of a bar down in the French Quarter. From here I can look across the street at a ramshackle eighteenth-century building with a big pink neon eye in the window and a sign that says, ‘Sister Simone’s House of the All-Seeing Soul.’”
Matt laughed. “You’re making that up.”
“I wish I was. October Guinness is in there right now getting hypnotized so she can remember the coordinates that were used in some remote viewing session. My career is in the toilet, Matt.”
Matt’s voice sharpened. “You found her again?”
“She called me. Someone blew up her car and put her shrink in the hospital. I guess she ran out of options.”
“McClintock? What happened to the Colonel?”
Jax set down his drink. “Matt, how do you know Colonel McClintock?”
“I’ve known him for years. What happened to him?”
“Someone beat him up this afternoon.”
There was a pause, then Matt said, “What have you managed to get out of the girl?”
“Did you ever hear of something called the Archangel Project?”
“You’re the second person who’s asked me that today.”
“Oh? So who’s the first?”
Instead of answering, Matt said, “I can tell you the same thing I told him: never heard of it. What else have you got?”
Jax gave him a quick rundown.
When he was finished, Matt said, “Keefe? Did you say Keefe?”
“Yeah.”
There was another long silence, then Matt said, “This isn’t good, Jax.”
“No shit.”
“What’d you say these coordinates are for?”
“The office where Guinness says she saw this Archangel file.”
“So you’re beginning to believe in this stuff?”
“Did I say that? All I know is that someone obviously believes in it. They’re killing people all over town.”
Matt grunted. “I looked into Ross. He was discharged three months ago.”
“So what’s he been doing since then?”
“I don’t know. It’s like he dropped off the face of the earth. Rumor has it he went to the Middle East.”
The door across the street opened and October Guinness stepped out onto the narrow, crowded sidewalk. She was wearing a simple T-shirt and flippy cotton skirt, and her hair looked as if she’d recently been for a swim and let it dry in a breeze. As he watched, she brought up one hand to tuck a stray wisp behind her ear. The light from the wrought-iron street lamp slanted across her face as she turned her head, looking for him.
Jax pushed back his chair and stood. “The Middle East?”
“That’s right. Listen, Jax: somebody tried to access your files.”
“What?”
“They came at it through your identity documents. This wasn’t by way of official channels. This was someone working the old boy network. Which means someone down there has contacts in the Company.”
Jax stepped out of the bar into the street. The night smelled of the river and dank stone archways and spilled beer. “What are you saying to me, Matt?”
“I’m telling you to watch your back, buddy.”