Heather Graham - Let the Dead Sleep

It was in a canvas bag, shoved at the foot of the passenger seat.

He dragged it carelessly onto the seat. Hell, the thing had been around for hundreds of years, if what he’d heard was right. It had survived. He wrenched back the canvas so it lay with its cheek on the worn and dirty upholstery. But the eyes were open. It was grinning at him.

“Got your gun, Leroy? Are you ready? They’re all out to get you. They want me—because I have the power. You’ve got to take care, Leroy. You want me to work for you? You want me to get riches for you?”

Leroy sat there in terror. He was ice-cold, paralyzed with fear. A rational part of his brain kicked in.

He’d done too many drugs. Hell, he might just have burned out too many brain cells through alcohol poisoning. He knew the cheap rotgut stuff was giving him headaches these days.

But the damned thing was alive, talking to him.

As he gaped at it, the bust seemed to grow, to become a man. It sat next to him, still grinning.

“It can be yours, Leroy. Money, power, women—everything your heart has ever desired.”

Leroy tried to form words. He heard sirens behind him, all around him.

He didn’t know if he was more terrified of the bust that had become a man and sat beside him—talking to him!—or the police.

“Everything you ever desired, Leroy,” the thing repeated. “And all it will take is a little...spilled blood.”

Leroy looked straight ahead; he hit the gas and cautiously moved back into traffic.

He’d be damned before he let the police get him.

But he heard a voice, somewhere in the back of his head, trying to shout above the thunder that had sounded in his ears when the bust spoke.

You are falling into damnation this minute....

He couldn’t heed the voice.

He kept driving.

* * *

Quinn headed to Digger Duffy’s bar in Central City.

The area was gradually becoming safer; it had been slowly improving from its lowest point in the thirties—and then Katrina had hit. After that, crime had seemed to rise like a swell from the storm. Now, once again, the respectable citizens of the neighborhood were trying to gain control, but Central City still wasn’t filled with streets the casual tourist should wander.

Quinn knew it well enough. He’d been assigned these streets as a cop. He’d had informants in the area and was acquainted with a few junkies who’d happily sell their own mothers for the money to get just one more hit.

Digger Duffy’s was a strange establishment. Digger himself was a businessman who had happened to inherit the bar. He didn’t do drugs; he didn’t even sip on a beer. Two years in prison for knocking over an elderly lady and stealing her watch had given him religion.

He was a good guy. He didn’t try to reform folks and he didn’t turn them away. If they wanted to talk, he talked. If they wanted redemption, he tried to point them in the right direction. If they wanted a beer or a whiskey, he served it.

Drug dealers kept their business out of the bar, but everyone knew what was going down on the streets. They might be conducting business outside or nearby, but they didn’t do it in Digger’s.

Digger eyed Quinn as he walked inside, passing tables where men huddled in conversation and where the occasional loner sat gazing morosely into his beer.

Quinn sat at the bar in front of Digger. Digger kept cleaning glasses, raising a brow. “You here for the margarita special?” he asked doubtfully.

“A soda water. Throw in a lime if you want to get fancy,” Quinn told him.

Digger nodded, preparing the drink. “Who you looking for, Quinn?”

“A thief.”

Digger thought about that for a minute. “Haven’t heard ’bout anything major on the market lately,” he said.

“This isn’t your usual wallet or handbag,” Quinn explained. “This is a lethal object—although not many people would think of it as such.”

Digger was skilled at remaining expressionless but his slight frown made Quinn think he might know something—even if he hadn’t realized it before Quinn’s description.

He leaned close as he set Quinn’s soda on the bar. “Some guys figure they can slip through the police cracks and find collectors...and some of ’em do. Some ‘wind up’ with objects they believe they can cash in on. I did hear some talk earlier about a piece of art.” He lowered his voice. “There’s a collector in the city who likes cemetery art—and is willing to pay a lot for it.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about the thief or the buyer, would you?”

He shook his head. “Didn’t really know the guy who was in here. I’d seen him around before. He’s usually into petty stuff—helping himself to a tourist’s purse, hanging around the casino to see who leaves a bag hanging on the back of a chair... He’s never been into violence, hasn’t got that reputation, anyway. Heard him on a cell phone, talking about some house in the Ninth Ward and how if the buyer wanted the piece, he could get down there.”

The Ninth Ward was the easternmost downriver portion of the city—the largest ward in New Orleans. It was where the summer of storms had done their worst damage. Celebrities, Habitat for Humanity and other groups had tried hard to pick up the pieces. The destruction and the destitution, even as the years passed, remained prevalent. Crime was high.

“Can you give me a little more on that?” Quinn asked.

He whirled around, aware of movement behind him as he voiced the question. He was licensed to carry his gun, a no-nonsense Magnum, but he’d learned through his military experience and the academy not to draw until he meant to shoot.

The man standing behind him was as old as Digger and his color was gray. He had rheumy green eyes. Quinn sensed integrity as well as sadness in his manner.

“I heard him talking, too,” he told Quinn. “And I done hear tales about that ‘art piece’ that was nabbed. You go get it back, Mr. Quinn. We have enough crime and death going on here. You go get that bust or statue thing or funerary ornament or whatever it is. Bury it deep so it don’t come up again. Upper Ninth Ward—I heard someone talking about North Robertson Street.”

Quinn thanked him, placed a few bills on the bar and left. Heading for his car, he put through a call to Larue, asking the detective to meet him on North Robertson.

It was late as he drove through the areas of the city he loved; revelers were still out on the streets but in smaller numbers.

The reconstruction since Hurricane Katrina had been spotty and the demographics had changed drastically. Some decent citizens had returned, but some never would. The face of the Ninth Ward was ever-changing. A hard-working waiter might live next to a hastily reconstructed crack house.

Quinn turned down North Robertson Street. In the darkness and shadows alleviated only by a few blinking streetlights, he slowed to a crawl and looked intently at each building he passed.

He came to a pale blue clapboard house. To one side, a new wooden structure was rising. On the other was a derelict building with a sign that was fading and still proclaimed We Will Be Back.

There was something on the ground in front of the blue house.

Quinn pulled to a stop, braked his car and stepped out. He ran over to the object on the ground, hunkering down quickly when he realized it was a man, a youth of mixed race.

The earth beneath him was soggy with blood; there was no help for him.

He’d been riddled with bullets from some kind of semiautomatic weapon.

Cursing softly, Quinn stood.

He saw a scared child peeping out from behind a curtain at the new house next door. A door started to open.

“Stay in! Stay inside!” Quinn shouted.