Mardi Gras Mambo Read online

  He shook his head. “Am fine.” He looked at the coffee table and then at me. “You finished bagging for me?” There were beads of sweat on his forehead, despite the frigid temperature in the apartment.

  I nodded. “Yeah. You know, you shouldn’t leave your strongbox open and alone with someone, Misha. I could have just walked out of here with it.”

  His eyes narrowed to slits for a minute, but then he grinned. “No! I trust you—you would not do. Not Scotty. Other people I not trust, no, but you?” He patted my leg again. “You I trust. You friend.”

  I was oddly touched. “Thanks, Misha, that’s sweet of you to say.”

  He looked away and opened his mouth to say something but then closed it again.

  “Misha? Are you sure everything’s okay?”

  “Everything fine.” He shook his head. “Um, you mind going? Wish could stay, talk some more, but expecting someone.”

  “Of course. The boys are waiting for me.” He walked me to the door, where he gave me another hug, holding on much longer than he usually did.

  “Happy Mardi Gras,” I said, giving him a quick peck on the cheek. “And if you need someone to talk to—”

  “Happy Mardi Gras to you.” He gave me a long look, giving me the impression again that he wanted to say something else, then stepped back and closed the door.

  I stood there for a minute. What on earth? Something was definitely bothering him. I debated knocking on the door again to make sure he was okay—and then talked myself out of it. That dealer/client discretion thing kicked in; I wasn’t that good a friend of his. If he had a problem, he probably had real friends he could talk to.

  You are really getting paranoid, Scotty, I told myself. I stood there on the stoop for a few minutes, trying to pick up the sense I’d had earlier, but it was gone.

  I walked up St. Ann to the corner at Bourbon and grinned. I was still cold, but there was a big enough crowd in the street down there to create warmth. I picked my way through the crowd, saying hello and exchanging kisses with friends and strangers alike, and finally emerged out in a less crowded area halfway down the street. It was just a sandbar in the sea of people, though; less than ten yards away the crowd spilling over from Lafitte’s began. I’d told the boys to get drinks and we’d meet on Bourbon across from the bar in front of the Clover Grill, so I crossed over to that side and pushed my way through the crowd. The balcony was packed at Lafitte’s, and I could tell by the way the crowd was gathered into pockets that someone had to be showing something for beads. Sure enough, a few seconds later the guys on the balcony erupted into cheers and beads showered down to a spot in the crowd.

  The boys were standing in front of the newspaper stand. I stood for a minute, watching them. They looked incredible, and everyone walking past was checking them out. Frank had already discarded his mask, and Colin had pushed his up on top of his head. Colin had his back to me, and in the tights his big muscular ass looked like it could crack walnuts without much effort. His broad muscled back tapered down to his narrow waist, and the tights had worked their way down so you could see the top of his crack. I’m going to have to keep my eyes on them all night so someone doesn’t try to take one of them off, I realized. After all, the gay motto of Mardi Gras was “hold on to your husband!”

  Of course, in theory we could all sleep with whomever we wanted whenever we wanted, but theory and reality are two different things.

  David wasn’t costuming. His concession to the season was a leather vest and a leather cap pulled down low over his eyes. I slipped David his pills and threw an arm around both of my guys, pulling them in close. “Having fun yet?”

  “You were gone a long time.” Frank frowned at me. “I was starting to get worried.”

  Not this again, I thought. Is he going to be nervous all night long? “Everything’s fine, Frank. Relax already.” I reached up and kissed his cheek. “Just have fun, okay?”

  Colin handed me a bottle of water and grinned. “Well, we both get nervous when you’re out of our sight for a while. I mean, with your history of getting kidnapped—”

  “This is true,” David chimed in.

  “Why does everyone I love get so much pleasure from giving me shit?” I raised my arms imploringly upward and tilted my head back. “Why, Goddess, why?”

  They all laughed, the rat bastards.

  We watched the crowd for a while, pointing out hot guys to each other for about twenty minutes, then took our pills. Frank hesitated, and then I gave him a reassuring smile. He closed his eyes and washed it down with a big swig of water. I wasn’t letting them drink liquor that night. The first time doing Ecstasy is enough of a mind trip without involving booze. I personally didn’t like to drink when I was rolling—it made me throw up once—but David always could without a problem. I was Cruise Director Julie McCoy for the evening, so fifteen minutes after we took the pills we walked down the street to the dance clubs.

  I could feel mine starting to hit as I led everyone out to the dance floor at the Parade. David’s eyes looked bigger, so I knew he was feeling it too. Colin had a big grin on his face. And Frank—he looked like he was going to get sick. He was breathing hard, sweat beading his forehead, and he kept swallowing. Oh, no, I thought. “Wait here!” I yelled at Colin and David, then grabbed Frank’s hand and pulled him off the dance floor to the front bar area where some couches were placed.

  “Are you okay?” I shouted, to be heard over the music.

  “I-I-I don’t know.” He looked at me. His pupils were huge. “I feel really funny, Scotty.”

  I shoved him down on the arm of the couch and put my mouth on his ear. “Relax, Frank, you’re just starting to feel it. Don’t fight it—just don’t fight it and you’ll be fine. Go with it. You’ll see.” Frank grabbed my hand and squeezed it. His hand was soggy and trembling. “Smile, Frank.”

  He took a deep breath and smiled at me. “Oh, wow,” he said. His pupils were getting bigger, and his legs were starting to shake as well. I grabbed his hands and pulled him back up to his feet. “Bounce, Frank.”

  He looked at me. “Bounce?”

  I started bouncing. It was starting to hit me, and the bouncing felt good. He started bouncing too.

  “Do you love me, Frank?”

  The smile got bigger, and the tension around his eyes softened. “Yes, Scotty, I do.”

  A wave of emotion crashed around me. “I love you, too, Frank.” And I reached up and kissed him and felt his entire body begin to tremble. Our lips held together, and it was amazing, as though we’d gone into our own little world, and there was nothing else and nobody else in the world that mattered. I pulled back from him. Frank’s eyes were half shut, and I’d never seen such a big grin on his face. He looked so beautiful to me then that I wanted to just grab him and hold him tight, press him up against me . . .

  Damn, this was good Ecstasy!

  He was still trembling. “Come on, Frank, let’s go dance.” I pulled him back to the dance floor.

  Colin and David were already out there, dancing and smiling from ear to ear. I could feel Frank starting to dance behind me, and we pushed out to join Colin and David.

  “This is fucking awesome!” Colin shouted at me.

  Frank just kept grinning.

  “Woo!” said David, spinning around with a goofy smile on his face.

  Then I recognized the opening notes of the dance remix of Wynonna’s version of “I Want to Know What Love Is,” and it was like the deejay was playing it just for me. I screamed “Woo-hoo!” and threw my arms up in the air, my cape falling off my shoulders, and I started spinning around, losing myself in the music. I started singing along—my inner drag queen always seems to come out when I’m Xing—and then I felt someone behind me, and I looked over my shoulder to see Frank and felt him grinding against me, and then his arms came around me and he started kissing my neck, and then Colin was backing into me from the front, and I put my arms around him and started playing with his nipples, and he shuddered a bit and
the three of us stayed that way for a few moments, our bodies locked together, sweating and trembling and loving the moment, loving each other, and then another wave of joy came crashing through me and I broke free from them and spun away, and then David was tapping me on my back, and I grinned at him, and then Wynonna mixed into Britney Spears’s “Everytime,” and the dance floor was filled with other guys, and shirts were coming off, and the mirror ball descended from the ceiling, and green laser lights started hitting it, reflecting and bouncing off the steamed-up mirrors around the dance floor, and I grabbed the boys by the hand and dragged them over to the stage and I hopped up, with them jumping up on either side of me, and I stood there, looking out over the heads of the guys on the floor, and I stretched out my arms over the crowd, and it became my crowd, and I started dancing again, the boys dancing on either side of me, and I started performing for them all, letting the music just take me higher and higher and higher. . . .

  CHAPTER THREE

  Three of Wands, Reversed

  mistakes may be made through carelessness

  We stumbled out of the Parade at five-thirty in the morning.

  The sky was starting to lighten, but it was still a dark gray outside. There was a slight rain with a cold wind. There weren’t many people still out in the street, but street cleaners had yet to come by, so the gutters were still heaped high with trash. I was drenched in sweat from dancing for almost seven consecutive hours without much of a break. The residue of the Ecstasy in my system was still making my skin hot and sensitive, so when the cold wind hit me as I stepped down onto the damp sidewalk the immediate shiver I felt went right down to my spine. I was in a lull—Ecstasy makes you high in waves. There’s an initial high that lasts for several hours, and during those hours the waves take you so high it’s almost indescribable; it’s like you’re flying up in the clouds. You just feel beautiful and happy, and the world is a wonderful place. After that initial high wears down, you’re still a little high, but you can stand still without bouncing and can take a break from the dancing—but the waves still come to sweep you up into outer space again. As it wears off, the waves don’t last as long and aren’t as intense, and the time in between them becomes longer and longer. Sometimes they’ll still be hitting you in the afternoon of the next day, and I had a feeling this stuff was so strong we’d still be riding waves well into the next evening.

  I grabbed my thin cape and wrapped it around my shoulders in a vain attempt to protect my hot skin from the cold wind. My feet ached and my lower back was sore from the dancing and my socks were soaked completely through. My legs were also exhausted. My boots had rubbed raw spots on my lower legs and a blister had formed on the back of my right heel. Although it was only a walk of about eight blocks, I knew if we tried to walk home, we’d get sick from the cold and the rain—and that would effectively ruin the rest of Carnival.

  “Let’s grab a cab,” I suggested, through chattering teeth.

  “Good idea,” Colin replied, and he and Frank huddled close to me on the corner as I looked up St. Ann. With a prayer of thanks to the Goddess, I saw a black and white car heading toward us with the telltale United minibillboard on its roof. I waved, and it crossed through the intersection and pulled over. We piled into the welcoming warmth of the cab, and Frank shut the door behind us. I gave the driver the address and she pulled back out onto Bourbon Street.

  “You boys have a good night?” The driver was a slender woman with shoulder-length brown hair who looked to be maybe in her early thirties. There was a statue of the Blessed Virgin on her dashboard. She looked in the rearview mirror at us and smiled as she turned up the heater. “Nice costumes.”

  “Thanks. We had a great time,” I replied, rubbing my arms to try to warm them. “You have a busy night?”

  “Eh. So-so.” She laughed. “Dumb drunk tourists! I wish I had a dime for every one of them who forgot where they were staying tonight.”

  I laughed with her. Surviving the hordes of tourists during Mardi Gras always forms a common bond for locals in town during the madness. “I hope this rain lets up.”

  “It’s supposed to get up into the seventies and be sunny later.” She shook her head. “Y’all are my last fare. I’m going home and sleep as long as I can.”

  We chatted about inanities as she maneuvered around pedestrians staggering down Bourbon Street. Colin was running his left hand up and down my thigh, and the leg Frank had pressed up against mine on the other side was shaking slightly. I gave him a reassuring smile and he gave me one of his sweetest ones. I wanted to lean over and give him a kiss. When we got home we were going to have some incredible sex, and as far as I was concerned we couldn’t get there fast enough. . . .

  Damn, that was some good Ecstasy!

  “Did you hear about the murder up on Burgundy?” the cabbie asked as casually as she had discussed the weather forecast, as she turned right onto Esplanade.

  “Murder?” That got my attention. Had I heard that right? On either side of me, the boys stiffened. “No. What happened?”

  She shrugged. “At a house up by the Rawhide, on Burgundy. Some guy—I don’t know who—got killed. Shot, ’swhat I heard. They had the street closed off for a while.” She shook her head. “The crime in this city is really getting out of hand.” She started rambling about our ever-rising crime rate, the usual litany all the locals go through whenever something bad happens in our neighborhood or to someone we know.

  I closed my eyes, a sinking feeling in my gut. No, it couldn’t be, I tried to convince myself. That would be too much. I tried to close my mind to my external senses and empty my thoughts to try to commune with the Goddess, but she was silent. Unfortunately, I can’t summon my gift at will, or even how it will manifest itself to me. It used to be that I just read the tarot cards and she would speak to me through them. But in the last year, the gift had changed. The cards still worked, but recently I started having visions about what was going on, dreams that showed me the path to follow for the truth.

  I’ve even communicated with the dead. Now that was an experience—one I hope I won’t have again, at least not for a while.

  But if the Goddess isn’t willing to talk to me, there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

  You can see why I usually keep it to myself. Both Colin and Frank know; they’ve witnessed it in action. My family knows; my brother Storm refers to it jokingly as my “psycho gift” and teases me about it. But you know how people are about differences—they’d think I was some kind of freak or something if I told them about it, so I generally don’t. But this time there was nothing—no sense of anything. I tried to relax, but when we turned the corner onto Decatur I saw the white SUV parked illegally at the corner and knew for a fact I was screwed. The SUV belonged to Eighth District Police Detective Venus Casanova, who I’ve gotten to know far better than either of us would prefer. Don’t get me wrong—for a cop, Venus is incredibly cool, but the only times previously we’ve come into contact were when I’d found a body. I hadn’t found one this time, but it didn’t take any psychic ability to figure out Misha was dead, and somehow the police knew I had been there last night. Their presence at my front door made me think they wanted to talk to me pretty badly, probably badly enough to take me down to the station.

  And I still had nine hits of Ecstasy in the change pouch of my wallet in my right boot.

  This was not a good thing. I was going to have to call Storm and get him out of bed. And I would never hear the end of it.

  The cab pulled over in front of the white SUV and I shakily handed the cabbie a ten, waving off the change, saying thanks and “Happy Mardi Gras” to her as Colin opened his door and started to step out. Frank did so on the other side as well. I had just climbed out as Venus and her partner, Blaine Tujague, stepped out of the SUV and started walking toward us.

  Not a good sign.

  “Detectives,” Frank said, folding his arms, “happy Mardi Gras.”

  I could see that both his and Colin’s pu
pils were still highly dilated.

  Which also meant that mine were too.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. Not good, not good at all. I closed my eyes and tried to focus. Fortunately, I was still between waves.

  “You guys have a good night?” Blaine asked. He was smiling. He was a great-looking guy of about thirty, about five nine with thick hair the same blue-black as Colin’s, but his was straight and parted on the right side. I think he’s gay. At least, I think I’ve seen him around in the bars a few times, but then he could have been working undercover looking for drugs. You never can be sure in the Quarter. He was wearing a thick, wool navy blue trench coat over gray wool slacks. He joined Venus on the sidewalk.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Quiet night for you, I hope?”

  Venus shook her head. She’s a tall black woman, quite striking, with smooth, dark skin and almond-shaped eyes, her hair cut close to the scalp. Even in her overcoat you got a sense of coiled muscle and strength. “No offense, Scotty, but I was kind of hoping I’d never run into you in a professional capacity again.” She was holding a large cup of Circle K coffee and gave me an enigmatic smile.

  “Yeah, well.” I bit my lower lip. “No offense, but that makes two of us.”

  “What’s all this about?” Colin interrupted. He folded his arms and started bouncing to try to keep warm. “Can’t we go inside and get warmed up? We’re not exactly dressed for the weather.”

  “I need Scotty to come with us to the station.” Venus took a sip from her coffee. “You two can go on in.”

  My heart sank. The nine hits in my sock were burning a hole in my leg.

  “You didn’t answer his question,” Frank replied, coming to my rescue. “Scotty, you don’t have to go with them. He isn’t under arrest, is he, detective?”

  She shook her head. “Not at this time. We just want to ask him some questions.”

  Okay, that was a good sign. “Then I’m afraid I’m not going with you,” I said. One of the great things about having activist parents is they get arrested all of the time. Their rap sheets are probably about a mile long. They’ve been arrested so many times that it’s kind of unusual when they go to a protest and don’t wind up behind bars. The New Orleans police department is very well acquainted with Mom and Dad—and I am sure their FBI files would make pretty fascinating reading. Storm, Rain, and I were well versed in what the police can and cannot do, and our civil liberties, almost from the day we learned how to talk. We certainly knew our rights by the time we were old enough to carry protest signs. They used to drill us before protests. In my head, I could hear my mother’s voice: “If you are not under arrest, you are not obligated to go with the police. You are not obligated to talk to them about anything, even if you are under arrest. They’ll try to make you feel comfortable, like chatting with them will clear everything up and then they’ll be on their merry way, but don’t fall for it. If you don’t talk to them, they’ll tell you it’ll make you look guilty. Don’t fall for that, either. Looking guilty and being guilty are two entirely different things, and if you’ve done nothing wrong, there’s no reason for you to talk to them unless and until they tell you why they want to talk to you in the first place.”