Eleven p.m. I was sitting with Marie in the sparsely populated, dimly lit hotel bar at the Inn on Bourbon complete with a patina of cigarette smoke in the air. A delightful jazz pianist named Talea Townsend played in the background. She was a pretty, light-skinned African-American woman with close-cropped hair tinted gold and long fingers that caressed the keys in a style that evoked Keith Jarrett. Her concentration was so intense that not even the long dangly earrings adorning her lobes moved while she played, just her arms and fingers. I thought she was too talented to be playing weeknights. I also knew New Orleans was full of talented musicians who needed to be heard by the right people at the exact right time before they got the high-paying gigs or the coveted recording contract. Regardless, she was perfect background for a relaxing evening in an intimate setting and when she was taking a break, I picked up the CD she had for sale.
Marie smoked clove cigarettes and drank apple martinis. I was sipping my third glass of a wine called Argyle Brut, which was out of Oregon, not Scotland, despite the name. I liked the zing in the taste, and it had an aroma of pear and citrus. I blamed Marie. She had dragged me to a wine-tasting class in the late fall.
“What had you been taking for the flu?” she asked me. A bowl of artichoke spinach dip and fried bowtie pasta chips sat between us. I nibbled while she smoked.
“Just over-the-counter stuff. Dayquil, Nyquil, middle-of-the-afternoon-quil. Maybe some Robitussin when I had a cough. Nothing I haven’t had before, and I haven’t needed anything the last day or two. Otherwise I wouldn’t be out drinking wine made of socks.” I giggled.
“That’s it, no more for you!”
“Why not? It’s not like I’m driving.” I blinked innocently.
She blew smoke rings. “Okay, but you’re supposed to be the responsible one. I can’t handle role reversal.”
I stuck my tongue out at her, our way of closing and/or changing subjects. “I can be as silly as I want. It’s my night off, and they’re my hallucinations, if they are, in fact, hallucinations, and I don’t think they are.” The noodle crunched in my mouth and I let the cheese and garlic play rhythm to the lead of the artichoke.
“What about your phone, though?” Marie winked at the waiter who brought her a new martini. He gave her a smile with a touch of leer.
“I’ve thought about that.” I said, going serious for a moment. “I don’t have an answer. Yet. Since the phone did have 811 in the memory, I think it’s circumstantial evidence that I in fact called 911” I let the wine wash over my tongue. It complemented the dip nicely without overpowering any of the flavors. “I wish Jerry had come up with something. There’s been no word from Dodson, either. Not even more questions.”
“That’s unusual for him.” Marie stubbed out her cigarette and excused herself to go to the ladies’ room. I continued to sip my wine, letting myself relax and get caught up in the atmosphere. For every club with music loud enough to hear two blocks away, there was a mellow place like this tucked away somewhere in the city. It sometimes took a little hunting to find the quieter places, but Marie was an expert at finding gems like these.
A few minutes later, I saw Marie smiling coquettishly at a man at a table near the piano, fishing her business card out of her purse to hand to him. I smiled. In some ways she hadn’t changed very much from when she was seventeen. Three marriages hadn’t stopped her from flirting with anyone she liked the looks of either. She was good at it too.
As for me, I never had been. I was a little too plainspoken for playful banter unless I was incredibly comfortable with the man in question. To my pleasure, that had a charm of its own, and when we were in high school and college, while she played the coquette, I rarely lacked for company, even if it was only drinks for the evening. I caught the eye of a man at the bar, then blinked as I realized I’d seen him before. There was the same pale skin, hair in a Beatles mop, though I knew it hung past his shoulders in the back. And now I knew he had dark brown eyes like bittersweet chocolate. Or Guinness. Curious, I sat up a little straighter to take a closer look. There was the tattoo, the stick figure, though I was too far away to see the circles and stars.
He smiled at me and gave me a wave that was more like a half-salute. Two fingers rested on his right cheekbone, a very nicely sculpted cheekbone, come to think of it, then pointed at me. I relaxed and smiled back. I hadn’t been imagining things after all. I got up and walked towards the bar, eager to find out if he was all right, what had happened, just who the hell he was.
“Hold on, little lady,” a jolly Texas accent said at the same time I collided with a navy blue-suited shoulder.
“Sorry about that,” I said and tried to keep moving. John Doe was still at the bar; his smile beckoned.
The suit turned and blocked my path. “My you’re a pretty thing. And I like the fillies tall. No need to rush off, now.” Filly? That was a new one. I took a look at the man in my way. There was a cowboy hat to go with the accent and they both reeked of cheap bourbon. The hat matched his boots, a tan that my mother had called camel-colored. “I heard New Orleans was a right friendly place.”
I was in no mood for lagniappe--an old Creole expression meaning unexpected gift of benefit. “I’m very pleased to hear that. Now will you excuse me?” He wasn’t the only one wearing boots and mine had spiked heels. He winced and jumped aside when my heel met his instep, muttering something about women not knowing their place. Marie and I would get a giggle out of that one later. Right now, I was in a hurry.
By the time I reached the bar, John Doe was gone. I ran outside and saw two prostitutes on the corner of Bourbon and Toulouse. They could have been male or female, and from a distance I heard an angry female voice. “Dammit, McKay, if you aren’t careful, I’m really going to have to kill you.” That was an odd snippet of conversation, but no stranger than the, “Never mind,” on my telephone. I couldn’t tell which direction the voice had come from. Sound carried pretty well on the cold clear night.
I approached the hookers. “Which way did they go?” Up close, I determined one was a female, the other was cross-dressing.
“Girlfriend,” said the one I thought had a Y chromosome—she was slightly better dressed that her companion. She also had more sequins. Where do they get the outfits? “They weren’t buyin’ so we weren’t payin’ attention.”
Mike Logan would have threatened to run them in. Philip Marlowe would have pulled a ten out of his wallet and prompted for more information. I had left my purse in the bar, so that option wasn’t available to me either. I said a polite, “Goodnight, ladies,” and was rewarded with manly giggles. Both cross-dressers after all. A not uncommon sight on Bourbon. I’d been to an all-male revue once that you would have thought was oozing with estrogen if you hadn’t been told otherwise. I shivered and went back inside. Forty degrees was no temperature to be outside without a coat.
Marie was back at the table, a look of concern on her face. “Where did you go?”
“I’m not crazy.” I took a sip of the wine and felt it warm me all the way down.
“Jury’s still out on that one.”
“Hush.” Vague comments about a river in Africa occurred to me, but I continued as if I hadn’t thought that. “He was here, Marie.” I put down my wine a little harder than necessary. “I’m serious. The guy from last night was here, complete with weird tattoo on his neck. Sitting at the bar. He waved at me. I was going up to talk to him and that lummox in the cowboy hat had to get in my way.”
She patted my hand, and put my wine glass back in it, rendering the initial gesture actually useful. I sipped, giving myself time to calm down. When I did, I repeated my story in nearly complete sentences. While Marie listened, she lit up another cigarette and offered me one. I was tempted, but I’d quit smoking when journalism quit me and had managed to stay that course. I drank more wine instead, nodding when offered another glass.
“So what did you see when you ran outside?” she asked in the calm voice you used with hysterical people.
I glared at her, but made an effort to be more coherent this time. The wine was not helping. “A pair of streetwalkers who had very different tattoos than my mystery man, who may or may not be named McCoy. At least I think that’s what she said.” I took a breath to slow myself down. Mc-something, definitely. “Remind me to start carrying a notebook around again.” Maybe I could sell Moleskines at Bloody Murder.
“Zo, how many glasses of wine have you had?”
“Three, if you count the one at dinner, which was hours ago.” We’d eaten at the Cat’s Meow.
“And you’ve been sick.”
I didn’t like where this was going. I didn’t like Marie being reasonable. “Marie . . .”
“Zo,” She replied in the same tone of voice. “Let’s get you home to bed.”
Anything I would say to that would have come out petulant so I kept my mouth shut. Besides, I was starting to shiver.