Robert Asprin - Dragons Wild

“So it’s like that, huh,” TeeBo said.

“I hear that you’re fireproof,” Patches said. “Are you bulletproof, too?”

“I really don’t know,” Griffen said. “Am I about to find out?”

“Shut yo’ mouth, Patches,” TeeBo said. “You might learn something.”

He turned his attention back to Griffen.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” he said, “what’s that you’re wearing around your neck?”

Griffen reached up and fingered the beads.

“This?” he said. “It’s a charm someone gave me.”

“Someone gave you that?” TeeBo said.

“A woman named Rose,” Griffen said. “Why? Do you know her?”

“Heard of her,” TeeBo said. “Mr. Griffen, you get those before or after your little trip?”

Griffen blinked, both at the “mister” and the reference. He shouldn’t have been surprised considering how rumor spread in the Quarter.

“You heard about that?” Griffen said.

“Yeah, word is, someone’s real mad wit you.”

Another surprise. Griffen realized that the George could use a rumor mill as yet another way to taunt. Or even as a weapon.

“After.”

TeeBo nodded as if that had been what he expected.

“You see what I’m talkin ’bout, Patches?” he said to his brother.

“Well, lookee here!”

A middle-aged black man in a suit had just come through the front door. Following in his wake were four young athletic looking blacks. What was notable about them was that they were all wearing long trench coats despite the heat outside.

“I had my suspicions, but now I know,” the man continued.

Tension danced through the room like chain lightning.

“Chill out, T.J.,” TeeBo said. “You just think you know. We had our suspicions, too. That’s why we’re here.”

“So you’re telling me he’s not cutting me out to deal with you?” T.J. said.

“He’s cutting us all out,” TeeBo said. “We thought he was makin’ a deal with you, but he told us he never even heard of you.”

“Bullshit,” T.J. said. “Everybody’s heard of T.J.!”

“Well, he’s not dealing with us and he’s not dealing with you,” TeeBo said. “He says he’s making his people choose between working for him or dealing because of what happened to Reggie.”

“That a fact?” T.J. said. “And you believe him?”

“That’s right,” TeeBo said. “You want to know why? Ease over here and take a look at what he’s wearing around his neck.”

T.J. glanced at his men and gave a quick jerk of his head. They moved sideways, fanning out along the bar to give them a clear line of sight, and fire, to both the brothers and the table of their supporters. Then he sauntered casually up to Griffen and peered at the beads…then jerked suddenly erect as if he had seen a snake.

“Is that for real?” he said to TeeBo.

“He says that Rose gave it to him,” TeeBo said. “He’s a white boy only been in town a couple months. I don’t see him making up a story like that.”

“If he is or if he’s lying, he’s too stupid or too bold to be afraid of anything we might run at him,” T.J. said, stepping back.

“That’s the way I read it,” TeeBo said.

The two men looked at each other, then nodded.

“Mr. Griffen,” TeeBo said. “I thank you for taking the time to clarify the situation. Now, if you’ll excuse us, T.J. and I have a few matters to discuss in light of this new information.”

Griffen took this as a dismissal, and, nodding respectfully to the principals, headed out at what he hoped was a dignified pace.

He had caught a gravel patch…again!

The air never seemed sweeter nor the colors as bright and reassuring. Even the glare and the heat were welcome.

Valerie had started her morning with another sweet breakfast at Cafe Du Monde. This time, she was a bit too distracted to properly appreciate her surroundings, though she couldn’t think of anything that could quite block it out completely.

Some of the artists and the performers Valerie had grown used to seeing. Others seemed to alternate, or just appear randomly. Calliope music filtered over from the river, and blended oddly but somehow appropriately with a bagpipe player on the corner of the Square. A man on stilts was juggling and pacing, while a woman with six small poodles circled the Square again and again. Valerie wasn’t quite sure whether the woman was a local, or a tourist, but she couldn’t help noticing her hairdo matched that of her dogs.

What distracted Valerie from her meal and the events around her were a small notebook and a folded newspaper. It was a local publication, distributed free in bars and coffeehouses, and it was currently folded to the jobs section. She had decided to take herself out of her worries.

If Griffen wanted to keep her in the dark, she would find something else to occupy her time. The notebook held numbers of want ads Valerie had noticed throughout the Quarter, as well as a few she had been passed by locals. She mulled over the list, unsure of what, if anything, she planned to do about it, and sipped the last of her hot chocolate.

The waiter was just clearing away her plate when new movement caught her eye. A man came around the far corner of the Square. It wasn’t his mere appearance that caught her eye, though he moved with a certain amount of casual grace that she found herself admiring.

The real attention getter was the horde of small girls scurrying around him. Over a dozen girls, all dressed in navy blue skirts and starched white blouses, the oldest of whom couldn’t have been more than ten. They clamored and giggled around him, a sea of smiling faces, tugging at his pant legs and otherwise scrabbling for his attention. Pant legs that Valerie noticed were extremely well tailored, as was his dark red shirt with a rubylike sheen.

Behind the group, dressed in full nun habit, was the obvious watcher of the little horde. She stood back and shook her head, face holding a look of barely concealed amusement.

The man turned and threw his hands up, making a fierce face and bellowing. All with the predictable results of sending the giggling girls scattering all around him, not in the least bit afraid. One of the braver ones tugged on his pant leg again, and Valerie leaned forward a bit watching his reaction.

He rolled his head and presumably his eyes to the sky, flung his hands out to the side, and made a magician’s pass with them. Suddenly in one hand, he held a bamboo rose of the type that get made and sold on the street all over the Quarter. The girl shrieked and clapped her hands, and he bent low and handed it to her, blowing kisses into the air by her cheeks. She turned, clutching her prize, and fled, the rest of the pack chasing after her.

The nun gave him a glare, shaking her finger and not really meaning either, and strode off to try and return some order to the group. Valerie couldn’t help but to give off a full, throaty laugh.

At the sound, even though he was across the street, his back stiffened and he turned on his heel, eyes searching. There was no way for Valerie to hide that she was watching, but she didn’t bother. Something about the way he moved, and now he moved toward her like a man with a purpose, captivated her eye. She noticed the well-muscled build of his shoulders, and the well-styled line of his hair, and the way people moved out of the way for him. He strode across the street, apparently ignoring the passing cars, and stopped a few steps from the rail separating the cafe from the street.

“Do it again,” he said in a voice that was soft but compelling, even through the early morning hustle and bustle.

“Do what, precisely?” Valerie said a little cooly.