Mardi Gras Mambo

After what seemed like an eternity—but according to my watch was actually only about five minutes—I decided it was probably safe to get up off the floor and away from Misha’s body. I slid up onto the couch, poised to dive back down if I heard another ping, but there was nothing. I sat there, trying to get my heart rate to slow down. Deep cleansing breaths, I kept repeating over and over again to myself, keeping my eyes closed as the sirens got louder. I flipped open the cell phone again and made sure not to look where Misha’s body was. I dialed Storm’s cell phone. I quickly explained what had happened and that the police were on their way already, and he told me, as I expected, to keep my mouth shut.

Like I didn’t know that already.

The rain had stopped, and I kept my eyes focused on the French doors, expecting Colin to come back through at any moment. The cold wind was making me shiver again. I thought about getting up and closing the door, but that was a dumb idea. The cops wouldn’t like me messing with their crime scene, and besides, it wouldn’t help. The glass had been shot out. I could see the jagged pieces lying scattered all over the floor. I wrapped my arms around me and started rubbing them to try to get the blood flowing again, but I couldn’t stop shivering. My teeth were chattering. My clothes were still damp, so I grabbed the towel Colin had left behind and wrapped it around me. It was no help; it too was damp. I heard a click as the central heating clicked on, and I checked around for a floor vent. I spotted one over by one of the windows and walked over to stand on it. Before long warm air was blowing up my pant legs and I wasn’t shivering anymore.

Where are you, Colin? Are you okay? What’s happening out there?

Car doors slammed out front. I didn’t want to leave the warm air, but I was glad the cops were finally here. I breathed out a sigh of relief and crouched down, making my way out of the room, all the while listening carefully for more shots. Once I made the hallway, I quickly shut the door behind me and took a big, deep breath. Of course it was silly—shutting the door wasn’t going to make the reality of what happened in there go away, nor was it going to make me any safer—but somehow having that door shut behind me made me feel somewhat better about everything.

Colin was fine—he had to be.

He’s okay, I told myself as I wandered to the front door. You didn’t hear any more shots from outside, so he’s probably perfectly okay, trying to figure out who was doing the shooting. He knows how to take care of himself. If nothing else, the little story about his past as an Israeli commando should make you aware of just how good he is at what he does.

I opened the front door as Venus and Blaine came running up the walk, their guns out. I held my hands up. Some other cops in uniform were creeping around the side of the house, guns drawn, in their navy blue NOPD rain slickers. “I think the coast is clear.” My voice was shaking. I swallowed and took a deep breath. “There hasn’t been any more shooting. Not since, you know . . .” I let my voice trail off. “The body’s in the sitting room, third door down the hall on the left.”

Venus gave me a funny look. “Are you okay?” She was holding a cup of PJ’s coffee in her gloved hands.

I turned my head. It seemed to take a really long time, but then her face swung into focus. “Fine. I’m fine, Venus.” I gave a brittle laugh. “Colin—he went out after whoever it was. He hasn’t come back.” I swallowed. “I don’t know what happened to him.” I gave her a weak smile. “But I’m sure he’s okay. Really. Colin knows how to take care of himself.”

A young black cop stuck his head out the door. “The house is cleared, ma’am.”

Venus and Blaine exchanged a look, and she said, “Stay here with him, Blaine. I’ll go check things out.” She went into the house and shut the door behind her.

Blaine smiled at me and touched my arm gently. “Why don’t we sit down here on the steps, Scotty? You look a little green. You might feel a little better once you sit, you know? Just keep taking deep breaths. You’re okay now. We’re here.”

“I feel a little green, but mostly I’m cold. I feel like I am never going to be warm again.” I laughed. It was weird, the laugh seemed to echo in my head. I frowned, and it stopped. There was a strange buzzing sound in my head, and I shook it to try to get it to stop. Blaine was watching me, like I was an exhibit under glass or something, and it was bugging me. I was just about to ask him to stop staring when an ambulance roared up, followed by a fire truck. Blaine grabbed my arm and we moved back to the porch and off to the side from the front door and sat down in a porch swing. I sat and watched as uniformed personnel rushed past us. I felt like telling them that there was no need to rush, that Misha was dead and nothing they could do was going to change that—not unless they had the power to regenerate life—and somehow I doubted that. “Do you ever get used to it, Blaine?” I asked idly as the stretcher went by. “He’s dead, you know. They won’t need the stretcher. They’re just going to pronounce him dead on the spot.” Dead, dead, dead.

He looked at me strangely. “Get used to what, Scotty?”

“Watching people die.” I pushed against the porch with my feet, and the porch swing began to swing a bit. “Do you ever get used to it?” I stared at him.

That weird look again, then he looked away. “I hope I never do.”

“Huh. This isn’t the first time for me, you know.” I knew I was babbling but couldn’t stop myself. He was sitting right next to me, our knees almost touching. Somehow it seemed that if I could just keep on talking, it wouldn’t be real, that Misha hadn’t been shot and killed right in front of me, that he wasn’t lying in a pool of blood inside. My uncle, I reminded myself. My uncle, my uncle, my uncle. Two of my uncles are dead and two days ago I didn’t even know they were alive. Ain’t life funny? “Every time it happens I keep thinking, you know, this will be the last time, you know? But then it happens again, and it doesn’t get easier. . . .” I shook my head. I felt that weird numbness I now knew to associate with shock. I started shaking a bit. The wind was starting to blow stronger and colder, and the air was heavy with moisture. “And usually when someone dies right in front of me they were trying to kill me, so I guess this time is different somehow . . . but it’s the same, you know? So, yeah, I was wondering if it ever got any easier the more it happens. I mean, will there come a day when someone can get his brains blown out right in front of me and it won’t bother me at all?” I was babbling out of control now.

“Hang on.” He got up and walked over to Venus’s white SUV and rooted around in the back for a few moments, as my teeth started to chatter. The thickening mist turned back into rain just as he stood back up, clutching a thin blue blanket triumphantly in his hands. He ran up the walk as he unfolded it and sat down again, wrapping it around my shoulders. For a thin blanket, it was surprisingly warm. He smiled at me. “That should help a bit.”

The rain started coming down again in torrents as a van with the NOPD logo with the quarter moon and stars on its side drove up.

That was when I realized Colin’s car was gone. I looked at Blaine. “Was a black Jaguar parked where that van is when you drove up?”

Blaine’s eyebrows knit together. He thought for a minute. “No, should there have been?”

“That’s where Colin’s car was parked.” My heartbeat slowed down a little. That was a good sign. Colin must have followed whoever had done the shooting. That meant he wasn’t lying in the back of the house or in the side yard with a bullet in his head. Relief flooded through me and I relaxed, to the point where my body sagged and I almost fell into Blaine. I sat back up and gave him a sheepish smile. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay.” He gave me a big smile. “You’ve been through a lot today. It’s okay. Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah, I am.” I shuddered again. “Damn. It was so sudden, you know? We were just talking and then the next thing I knew . . .” I closed my eyes and remembered the lamp exploding, the glass in the windows breaking, the look on Misha’s face when the bullet hit him . . . and leaned over the side of the verandah and puked into the bushes.

I sat back up and wiped my forearm across my mouth. My stomach was still cramping, and I bent over at the waist to try to relax the muscles. “Sorry about that.” I gave him a weak smile. “Couldn’t help it.” My mouth now tasted sour and I could feel a headache starting right in between my eyes—one of the blindingly painful ones that make you wish you were dead.

“It’s okay.” Blaine’s voice was soothing. “Is there anything I can get you? Anything at all?”

“A toothbrush and toothpaste would be nice,” I said, with a broken laugh as I pulled up my shirt to rub on my teeth. “And aspirin.”

He handed me a stick of chewing gum. “Will this do? There’s aspirin in the SUV, I think. I can go look.”

I took the gum from him, unwrapped it, and popped it into my mouth. Almost immediately the saliva glands reacted to the sugar or the artificial fruit flavoring, taking away that wretched cottony feeling. My teeth, though, still had that raw after-puke feel to them. Blech. I looked out on the lawn. It was pouring, and the wind was picking up again. Parade’s going to be cancelled tonight, I thought. “No, that’s all right. You’ll get soaked.” I gave him another weak smile. “And if you caught pneumonia I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.”

“I don’t mind. It’s no big deal.” He stood up and gave me that high-wattage smile again. “Besides, I never catch cold.” He turned up the collar of his trench coat and ran across the lawn.

He’s awfully sweet, I thought, as I watched him jump into the front seat of the SUV and pull the door shut. Why have I never noticed that before? I can’t believe I slept with him and don’t remember it. I’m usually pretty good about things like that, especially when it’s someone as cute and sexy as Blaine—and nice, too, for that matter. I tried to remember as the rain started coming down harder and water began to swirl around in the street gutter. I got occasional flashes of memory—Blaine dancing at Oz with his shirt off with a bunch of other shirtless guys; Blaine hanging out on the corner at St. Ann and Bourbon with a group of other guys; Blaine dancing onstage at Oz in a black jock, winning the Calendar Boy contest one Thursday night—but as for he and I interacting other than on murder investigations, my mind was completely blank.

Blaine climbed back out of the SUV and opened an umbrella but still moved pretty quickly to get back to the porch. He closed it and sat down next to me again. He offered me a small bottle of generic ibuprofen and a small bottle of water. I shook out four pills and washed them down with the lukewarm water. “Does Venus, like, have everything you could possibly want in that SUV?”

Blaine laughed. “Actually, I bought that water yesterday and never opened it, left it in there. But, yeah, she’s pretty much prepared for everything.”

“Cool.”

“It never gets easier, you know—when someone dies in front of you?” He shrugged. “It doesn’t. The first time it happened, it was a little black girl in the Irish Channel. I’d been on the force for about six months. We responded to a call about a shooting, and it was a five-year-old-girl. Drive-by. Best we could figure, they really wanted her uncle, who was staying with them. She was playing in the front yard, and he was on the porch when they opened fire.” He looked down at his hands. “Of course, they didn’t get him. Just her. She died right in front of me.” He gave me a sad look. “That was the hardest one, you know. But it doesn’t get easier, ever. You think you’d get hardened to it, but you don’t. It’s always hard. It’s worse when you’re the one who shot them, though.”

“So you’ve killed in the line of duty?” It was a morbid conversation, but I didn’t want to think about my uncle lying in his own blood in the sitting room less than fifty yards away from where we were sitting.

He just smiled at me. “Can we change the subject?”

I shrugged. “Sure.” I pulled the blanket tighter around me.

“So, when you and Colin got here, was Mrs. Overton here?”

That gave me a start. “Um, no, she wasn’t.” I thought back. Had Misha said anything about her? I couldn’t remember to save my life. For all I knew, she could have been upstairs or in the kitchen when we were talking to him. I’d been so focused on getting him to talk, to tell us the truth, it had never even entered my mind that she wasn’t around. I frowned and tried to remember. “You don’t think—”

“Think what?” Blaine looked at me, his eyebrows lifted. He had emerald green eyes, just like Colin. In fact, his coloring was very similar to Colin’s. The same olive skin tone, the bluish tint of his cheeks when his beard was growing in as stubble, the reddish thick lips, the strong jaw—they could pass for brothers.

Brothers. Just the thought made me bark out a nervous laugh. I definitely had brothers on the brain. I took another swig of water. There was a thought trying to take form in the outer reaches of my mind, something to do with brothers, yet it was just out of reach.

“Think what?” Blaine pressed again, and the thought was gone.

“I don’t know.” I shrugged, frustrated. “I’m just wondering where she is, that’s all.” I looked out into the rain. “I mean, she’s probably okay, right?”

“I’m sure she is. You must have been really shocked to show up here and see this guy, right?” Blaine went on. “I mean, you thought he was dead.”

“Well, no. I mean, I knew they were twins. When we came by yesterday—”

“You came by before?”

I stood up, using the railing to help me to my feet. I was still wobbly. “Well, yeah. I mean—” I stopped myself. I could hear my mother’s voice in my head: Rule Number One is you never talk to the police, no matter what they say, unless you have a lawyer present. They will always try to get you to talk, to incriminate yourself, even if you haven’t done anything wrong. They don’t care; they’re just trying to make a case no matter what, and if it means going after the wrong person they don’t care. All they want to do is make their case and move on to the next one. It shouldn’t be like that but that’s how it is. They aren’t bad people, after all, but they have a terrible job and they are overworked and underpaid. So, never, ever under any circumstances talk to the police without a lawyer present to look out for your best interests. The police aren’t interested in helping you. They just want information.

Sitting there, holding my bottle of water, I looked at Blaine, who was looking at me with that innocent half smile.

He seemed so nice, so accommodating. Running out into the rain to get me water and aspirin, being so friendly, telling me we’d slept together, establishing a bond—

Getting me to talk.

This was a crime scene. Misha was dead. I was here, on the scene. Two nights ago his brother was murdered, and I had been there as well.

I was prime suspect number one, and I was talking to a cop without my lawyer present.

“You’re very good,” I said, reaching into my pocket for my cell phone. “You almost had me convinced.”

He gave me an innocent look. “What are you talking about?”

“Drop it,” I said, a little sharper than I’d intended. “This conversation is over.” I flipped the phone open, cursing myself for almost falling for the oldest trick in the cop book. Sure, I hadn’t done anything wrong—all I’d done was, once again, be in the wrong place at the wrong time—but I had no idea what they were looking for, what Blaine and Venus were trying to figure out. I doubted they were trying to prove that I’d done anything, or had anything to do with Misha’s shooting, but better safe than sorry. I hit the speed dial button and punched in three. Storm answered on the second ring. I walked away from Blaine. “Storm, I’m at Aunt Sylvia’s and the police are questioning me.” I took a deep breath. “Someone shot Misha, and I have no idea where Colin is. Can you get over here now?”

“Scotty, are you crazy?” I heard him take a deep breath. “I’m already on my way. I’m stuck behind the parade lining up—I’m trying to get around. Don’t you remember calling me?”

“Oh, yeah.” What was wrong with me?

“Don’t say a word to anyone. I’m on my way.”

I closed the phone and walked back to the stairs. “My lawyer’s on his way over.”

Blaine shrugged. “I don’t understand. Why do you think you need a lawyer if you haven’t done anything wrong?”

Now that I knew what he was up to, it was almost so predictable to be laughable. “Drop the act, Blaine. I’m not saying another word about anything until Storm gets here.” I sat down next to him. But I couldn’t resist. “So, when exactly did we sleep together?”

He looked away. “It’s been a couple of years.”

“How did we meet?” I pressed him. “And where?”

“At Oz. It was a Saturday night. In the summer.”

“How did we meet?” I pressed, ninety-five percent positive he wouldn’t be able to give me any details.

“On the dance floor. You were dancing with that friend of yours, the one with the dragon tattoo, and our eyes met and I came out on the dance floor and we started dancing together.”

Oh, could he be any more generic? I rolled my eyes and gave up. He was going to keep sticking to that lame story, apparently, and I wasn’t in the mood to trip him up. I was annoyed at myself for almost falling for it, but to give credit where it’s due, he was very good. I stared at him, searching the recesses of my memory. Yes, I’d seen him naked, and then it came to me exactly where. I’d seen him naked in the locker room at my gym, more than once. If he hadn’t thrown me by claiming to have slept with me, I would have remembered right away. No, we’d never had sex. I blew out a sigh of relief. At least I wasn’t going completely crazy. In all fairness to Blaine, I would definitely have remembered having sex with him. He was too sexy to forget.

His face was almost cherubic in its innocence. He was definitely good-looking, and a charmer. He could probably get women to open right up to those eyes, those sweet facial expressions, never letting on to them that he was gay, just charming the confessions right out of them. Yeah, he was good at what he did, all right. If I hadn’t almost fallen for it, I could admire his skill. Instead, it just kind of made me mad.

Venus came out onto the porch. She smiled at me. “You guys have a nice chat?”

I gave her a weak smile. “Storm’s on his way.”

She gave Blaine a quick glance and then turned her eyes back to me. When she spoke again, the friendly tone was gone from her voice. “All right, Scotty, you want to tell me what happened here? And what you were doing here?”

“I’m not saying a word until Storm gets here.”

“Scotty—I know you didn’t shoot him,” Venus said. “I found the shell casings outside.” She shrugged when I didn’t answer. “The shooter was outside, just off the side verandah. I just want to get your recollections while they’re still fresh in your mind. Did you see anything?”

I kept silent.

“Why were you and Colin here?” she tried again.

I turned and walked away from her, down the verandah to where it turned and ran down the side of the house. I heard her swear, something like “goddamned Bradleys, anyway.” I stood there for a moment, staring, trying to remember everything that had happened. It bothered me that my memory was so sketchy. I supposed it was posttraumatic stress disorder or something. Yellow crime scene tape blocked off the area just outside the French doors to the living room and also fluttered in the wind and rain in the yard, where it connected some of the verandah columns with a couple of trees. Some guys with umbrellas and NOPD rain jackets were taking pictures out in the yard and others were sifting through the grass.

I narrowed my eyes. The shooter must have been near the tree where the techs were working, but that didn’t make any sense. The house was raised; the verandah was at least three feet higher than the ground around the tree, and we’d been inside the house. I closed my eyes and tried to remember if the curtains on the doors had been open. I’d been sitting on the couch facing the doors, but for the life of me couldn’t remember if the curtains had been open or not. I hadn’t paid any attention to that, and once the shooting had started I’d dived for the floor. So, if the shooter had been out by the tree, he would have been shooting up at Misha, and that angle didn’t seem right somehow.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and tried to remember it exactly as it had happened.

I remembered the lamp on the table shattering.

The sound of the glass in the windows of the doors breaking—had the curtains been open?

I remembered the look on Misha’s face as he was hit, the way his eyes rolled up as his body fell forward into the table just as I dove to the floor, Colin yelling at me to get down, and everything kind of moving in a weird slow motion.

I opened my eyes. The curtains had to have been open.

Because how else would the shooter have even known that Misha was in the room? Surely he wouldn’t have just started shooting blindly into the room, with no idea of whom he was going to hit.

I shivered. Had it been the Russian mob? Just opening fire blindly through the French doors and hoping to take out everyone in the room?

But there had been only two shots.

The curtains must have been open but I couldn’t remember.

And if the curtains had been open, Colin must have seen the shooter.

He wouldn’t have gone outside after him otherwise. He was too smart and well trained to just run outside when someone was shooting unless he could see that the coast was clear. He wouldn’t just run out into the line of fire. Colin was incredibly observant; he noticed things that most people didn’t.

So, if the curtains had been open, he had to have noticed the shooter. But before or after the shooting started?

I shook my head. It didn’t make any sense. He must not have seen anyone until after the shooting started.

Please be okay, Colin. I couldn’t stand losing both you and Frank—

I stopped that thought dead in its tracks. Frank is fine. He is just out tricking. That is all.

Storm’s silver Mercedes drove up, and I let out a sigh of relief. He opened an umbrella as he got out and had a big grin on his face as he walked up to the house. He nodded at Venus and Blaine as he walked past them and gave me a broad wink as he approached. “So, what fine mess have you gotten yourself into this time?”

I started whispering, filling him in on everything that had been going on since I’d last talked to him. He whistled several times—I left out the part about the triplets being our uncles. I knew he’d get pissed, and I needed him thinking clearly. I hadn’t done anything wrong—at least I was pretty sure I hadn’t—but there would be time to deal with all of the family nonsense later. I paused when the morgue guys brought the body out, and we watched in silence as they loaded it into their van. I felt like throwing up again but put that out of my mind and went back to my story.

Storm looked over at Venus and Blaine. “You haven’t done anything wrong that I can see.” He shrugged. “I mean, outside of maybe obstructing justice. And that’s a stretch; you aren’t required by law to keep the police informed of anything you find out in the course of your own investigation.” He scratched his chin. “I don’t like that one bit.”

I hadn’t told him about Colin’s confession—no telling what the family would think; I still didn’t know what to think about that—and just said, “And I’m starting to worry about Frank.”

Storm laughed. “Come on, baby bro, how many times have you caused someone to do the same thing? Mom and Dad used to be terrified all the time when you didn’t come home at night.” Storm leaned on the railing and looked down into the rosebushes. “It really surprises me that the Feds haven’t turned up around here, to tell you the truth.”

“The Feds?” I stared at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Scotty—Russian mobsters?” He shook his head. “The Feds should be all over this, you know. And the triplets, well, they’re Russian—foreign nationals. Who knows what they may or may not have been involved in back home. Pasha—it was Pasha, right? I can hardly keep them all straight—was involved with a Russian mobster. The Russian government has been trying to prove that the Russian mob has ties to the Chechnyans—and that just screams terrorism to me. Come to think of it, Homeland Security should have turned up by now.” He shook his head. “Come on, let’s talk to them.” He reached over and rubbed my head. “I love you, little bro, but sometimes I swear I don’t know how you get caught up in these things.”