Chapter Four
Michael waited, pacing the hotel room for hours. He knew something must have gone wrong. Deacon should have been back by now. With a sigh, he plopped down on the end of the bed and turned on the news. Within minutes, his suspicions were confirmed, when the anchor came on with a breaking report from the French Quarter. He recognized the house and, for a moment, he felt like his world was crashing down, but then the anchor said that it had only been a robbery.
Michael turned off the TV and grabbed his coat. He figured the detective had to be at the police station so he ran out the door and jogged down to the nearest precinct. Luckily, it was the right one. He was breathless as he stood at the front desk and arguing with the desk sergeant wasn’t helping.
“Look, I need to see someone about Deacon Jameson.”
“Who?” the desk sergeant asked again.
Michael looked around, but no one was paying them any attention. “The man who was robbed last night,” he whispered.
The woman’s eyebrows crept up. “And you need to see someone because?”
“I know who did it.”
***
Just down the hall, Deacon sat alone in a stark room with two plain chairs and an equally plain table. The walls were a dark gray and one overhead light gave off a white, fluorescent glow. He knew the drill and sighed in annoyance. When the door finally opened and Ramirez-Montague stepped in, he smirked and said, “Thanks for making me wait.”
Ramirez-Montague gave him a cheeky nod and then sat down across from him. He made a point of opening the case file and looking it over as if he hadn’t seen it before. He nodded here and there and then looked up, expectantly, at his suspect. He stared for a moment, but Deacon only stared back, blinking purposefully.
“You’re gonna make this hard for me, aren’t you?” he finally said.
“Doesn’t everyone?” Deacon answered.
“No, actually, some people are quite anxious to tell me what they know.”
Deacon tilted his head to the side and nodded. “Personally, I think this would go a lot quicker if you asked me some questions.”
“All right,” Ramirez-Montague conceded. “Was anything missing, or did you just ransack your apartment and attack your neighbor out of spite?”
Deacon laughed. “Phew, way to bury the lead, Detective.” He took a moment and then said, “I didn’t do this. I barely knew the guy.”
“Uh-huh. So, why would someone trash your place and not take anything?”
Suddenly, Deacon clammed up. He had no idea how far this secret group went or whether the police would even believe him if he brought them up. “Um, I have my theories.”
Ramirez-Montague stared at him again, his lips pursed and his eyes unblinking. After a moment, he shook his head and said, “You wanna give me some idea?”
“I’m on a case. I must be getting too close to the truth and the people I’m investigating don’t like it.”
“What else is new?” the detective mumbled. “I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me where you were last night, then?”
“With my client.”
“All night?”
Deacon squirmed in his chair. “Yeah.
“Does this client have a name?”
Deacon clasped his hands together on the table and looked away. “I can’t tell you that. They are in danger and don’t have anything to do with this.”
“I need something, Jameson,” the detective sighed.
Before Deacon could say anything, there was a knock on the door. It was Ramirez-Montague’s partner and she slipped him a note. He sat back down and read it, a little surprised, and then looked back up at his suspect.
“It wasn’t Michael Deveraux by any chance, was it?” he asked.
Deacon’s mouth fell open and his heart skipped a beat. “Um…why?” he asked, quietly.
“Because he’s here, insisting you didn’t do anything because you were with him all night and that he knows who did.”
Deacon blushed, but sighed in relief. He tried to harden his looks and nodded at the detective. “Yeah, that’s right.”
“And he’s your client?” Ramirez-Montague asked.
“Yeah, someone’s trying to silence him.”
“Oh really? And you didn’t think to come to us, maybe?”
“No, because there’s no proof of anything other than a couple of guys beating him up,” Deacon spat. “We’re doing just fine without you, thanks.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” the detective sassed and shut the case file. “Look, you know the drill.”
“Yeah, yeah, you may need to ask me some more questions. Don’t you want to ask him who did it?”
Ramirez-Montague glared at him and pointed at the door. “Maybe, but for now just get out of here.”
Deacon smirked and then marched out the door. Out in the lobby, he met a relieved looking Michael who started to throw his arms around him. He put up a hand, though. The piano player looked hurt, but understanding.
“Come on,” Deacon grumbled. “Let’s get back to the hotel before we’re recognized or something.”
“You think Vires et Spiritu have people in the police?” Michael asked.
Deacon cocked his head. “Don’t you?”
He opened the door and walked out onto the sidewalk. He was surprised to admit that seeing Michael had only irritated him, but after a moment of thought, he realized why. When they were out of range of the police station, he stopped and turned on the taller man.
“Why did you come down to the station?” he demanded.
“To make sure you were okay,” Michael blurted in response.
“Now they know who you are and that you’re involved…that we’re involved!”
Michael straightened up in surprise and bit his lip. “Is that what you’re really worried about? That someone might find out you’re involved with a man?”
Deacon grit his teeth and then ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “Look, I don’t know what it’s been like for you—”
“It’s been crap.”
Deacon looked up at him, his frustration growing. “I’ve never been…”
“Out?”
“Comfortable in what I felt. I wasn’t allowed to be,” he added, his voice growing soft and sad.
Michael’s features softened and he tried to take Deacon’s arm, but the man turned away.
“Let’s just…get back to hotel, okay?” he said and started walking again.
The two of them were quiet for the rest of the walk and for a while once reaching the small hotel. Deacon was deep in thought, knowing he couldn’t go back to his apartment and that, whoever had ransacked it, would have seen all the notes he’d made. They definitely knew he was on to them. He considered getting out of the city altogether, but he hated the idea of running away. After a while, he glanced up at Michael, who was simply staring at him.
“What?” he finally asked and shook his head.
“You were talking to yourself. You said you hated the idea of running away.”
“Oh yeah,” Deacon mumbled. “Well, I do. I think we should stay here and figure this out.”
Michael pursed his lips. “Seems to me, you’ve spent your whole life running away.”
Deacon clenched his teeth and felt a lump form in his throat. The piano player had struck him right in the heart. After a moment, he looked away, trying hard to fight back tears. Then he laughed and wiped them away. “Yeah, well…”
Michael sighed and walked over to the table. “I’m sorry,” he whispered and took Deacon’s hand. When Deacon looked up at him, he knelt down. “Wanna tell me about it?”
“No,” the detective answered through more tears and another chuckle.
“I could tell you weren’t…experienced, last night,” Michael said, his voice still soft and understanding.
Deacon cringed, hating to hear something like that from this man, ten years his junior. Then he nodded. “Especially not with men,” he admitted. “I’ve been with a few women, here and there, but…my heart wasn’t really in it.”
Michael nodded from experience. “I’ve been there, too.”
“I mean, I always knew who I really wanted, but…” He sighed, but now that he was on a roll, he felt like he needed to say it all. “When I was a kid, I made the mistake of letting on who I liked. My dad completely freaked out. He couldn’t accept the idea at all.”
“Did he hurt you?” Michael asked, wincing at the idea.
Deacon nodded and stared down at his hand in Michael’s. “I never mentioned it again, even pretended to like girls and had a few girlfriends in high school. We never…did anything though.”
Michael wiped away a tear from Deacon’s cheek and then pulled him close.
“I’m fine,” Deacon insisted and tried to push him away.
The younger man was strong though and held fast. “No, you’re not. It’s OK, though,” he added as his lover continued to grumble.
When Deacon finally relaxed, the two of them held each other for a long while, before pulling apart. Neither said anything else about it. Deacon blushed a bit as Michael gave him a small peck on the cheek, but his mind quickly got back to business when the younger man picked up his phone.
“How about I order some take out?”
“No!” Deacon barked, startling him. “If they can trace my search at the library, we’ve got to think that they can do the same with your phone. In fact, turn it off completely.”
Michael nodded and quickly powered down his phone and tossed it onto the bed like it was a bomb that might explode at any moment.
Deacon turned his off as well and then got up to pace the floor. “This isn’t just a simple case of us bringing down the guys who beat you up anymore. They’re after both of us now.” He took a deep breath and shook his head. “We’re running for our lives now. Who knows what they might try.” Once again, he found himself wishing he still had his gun. They might just need it at this point.
“Then we have to get to the bottom of everything and find proof of what they’ve been doing,” Michael insisted.
“Like proof they trashed my place and beat you up?”
“Exactly! And the murder they committed ten years ago.”
Deacon thought for a moment. This was what he did for a living after all. The question was, how to do it when he was the main suspect, and how to do it without getting killed. He glanced up at Michael.
“You were one of them once. How do we find them?”
Michael’s enthusiastic smile faded. “It won’t be easy. Everything was done with passwords and secret hideouts around the city that were always changing.”
“Do you know any current members?”
“You never really leave. I don’t know anything about them since I’ve left, but the guys who attacked me were in it with me.”
Deacon rubbed his goateed chin. “So, old friends? How nice. I wonder if we could find them through their everyday lives, something we could use.”
“It’s possible, especially if they’re as boastful and power hungry as they were then. Remember though, they’ll have older, more powerful guys backing them. In fact, it was probably them that orchestrated all of this.”
“OK, then the first thing we need to do is figure out who all the members are. And investigate the crime scene,” Deacon added glumly.
“You mean, go back to your apartment?” Michael asked in disbelief.
“That’s exactly what I mean. I’ll go in the middle of the night, when all the police have gone and the neighborhood’s quiet.”
Michael shook his head. “You mean, we’ll go?”
“No, I mean I’ll go.”
“They’re after both of us now. There’s no point in me lying low if you’re not.”
Deacon sighed and thought about it for a moment. “Yeah, OK, maybe you’re right. But you have to follow my lead. I’ve done this kind of thing before, remember?”
“What, breaking and entering?” Michael asked with a chuckle.
“Very funny,” Deacon grumbled, but then laughed too. “I’m getting too old for this shit,” he mumbled to himself as he started a list of everything they’d need, including some new, untraceable phones and two-way radios.
Luckily, they managed to get everything they needed at an electronics shop close to the hotel. They bought some groceries and clothes as well, in it for the long haul.
“We can’t get too comfortable,” Deacon announced as evening drew near. “It might be a good idea to move every few days.”
“You have more friends with hotels? We might not be able to get good deals or pay with cash at other places,” he pointed out.
Deacon grinned. “I thought you knew New Orleans better than that.”
Michael laughed and nodded. He’d forgotten that his lover was intimately acquainted with the city’s seedy underbelly.
Before long, they were ready to go. They’d bought black jogging suits as well, hoping it would help them hide in the shadows.
“This could almost be fun,” Michael commented as they grabbed a quick snack and headed for the door.
Deacon snorted. “You keep telling yourself that. It’s only fun if you aren’t the one in trouble.”
“So, you enjoy your clients’ suffering, then?” Michael teased.
The detective clucked at him, but didn’t deny it. “I may profit from it,” he said with a shrug. “That’s not the same as enjoying it.”
“Whatever you say, detective,” Michael sassed and then let out an “Ow!” and a laugh as Deacon backhanded his biceps.
“OK, we need to stay sharp. This is some deeply serious shit.” Deacon zipped up his suit and pulled up the hood. They’d risk walking to Esplanade Avenue because they’d be less likely to be noticed that way, considering their gear.
Michael nodded and quietly followed Deacon out of the hotel room and down to the street. Considering they were on the edge of the Quarter, there were plenty of people out and about, but the detective steered them toward the quieter streets, away from the crowds.
“I’ve always loved the atmosphere here,” Michael commented, quietly.
Deacon nodded with a grunt as they passed a row of wrought iron railed buildings. He checked the traffic and then stepped onto the street to keep them out of the lights of a corner club. Patrons stood outside, taking in the cooling air of autumn, but paid them “no never mind.”
Once they reached the other end of the Quarter, the nightlife had calmed considerably. Deacon turned onto Esplanade, a good distance away from the house he shared. The last thing he wanted to do was burst right out onto it. Michael waited a few beats and then slowly followed. The house was surrounded by yellow police tape, but they quickly ducked under it and ran for the back door. Once there, Deacon carefully cut the tape sealing the door, making sure that no one had seen them. The neighborhood was quiet though, so he opened the door just wide enough for him to get through and he went in.
Michael stayed outside, carefully checking the grounds for clues. With any luck, someone might have accidentally dropped something in the bushes, though he wasn’t holding his breath. It was a difficult task. Trying to look around while making sure he wasn’t being noticed. He was grateful that the streets here weren’t quite as bright as the ones in the Quarter. There were footprints everywhere, courtesy of the cops, so that was no good. He felt like he was getting nowhere fast.
Deacon held up his flashlight and looked around his apartment. Sadly, except for the odd, overturned piece of furniture, it didn’t look that much different. He knew everything had been gone through, fingerprinted and trampled over already and he suddenly wondered what they were doing there.
“We’re not gonna find anything,” he grumbled to himself.
“Do you really think they left something behind that the police didn’t find?” Michael’s voice came over the radio in a hushed whisper.
Deacon rolled his eyes, but didn’t want Michael to know he doubted it too. “Knowing how much these guys like games and rituals, maybe they left behind a message,” he offered. “Keep looking.” It was then he realized he’d never gone into the bathroom earlier that day, so he shrugged and moved forward.
The back room was dark, but Deacon hated to use the flashlight too much in case it drew attention. He carefully opened the bathroom door. Like the rest of the house, it had been wiped for prints, but was mostly undisturbed. Deacon went through the drawers under the sink and looked over his linen rack. As he turned to leave, he noticed something sitting on the edge of his tub. He hadn’t noticed it before in the shadows, but a strip of moonlight illuminated it now. On the tub was an antique box that looked very much out of place. It was a very old jack in the box toy, given to him by his grandfather—the only relative he’d ever felt truly loved him. He usually kept it in a box in the closet. He hurried to it, knowing that it had to have significance. Whoever had ransacked his apartment had left it there, specifically for him to find.
As he reached it, he hesitated. There was no note or anything else that looked like a message. He couldn’t imagine what significance the killer had placed on it. Finally, he picked it up and touched the crank. He’d only barely moved it when the box burst open and the surprise toy bounced out. Along with it, though, was a white powdery substance that filled the air around him. Deacon coughed and tried to back away before inhaling any, but it seemed to permeate the air and stick to him and his clothes. He tried batting it away and wiping it off, but the damage was already done.
In the front yard, Michael heard him moving about, but didn’t think much of it until he heard a cough. “Are you OK?” he said into the radio and then looked around in fear in case anyone had heard him. The neighborhood was still quiet. Then he turned back to the upstairs window. “Deacon?” he hissed.
Deacon had the vague notion that he must have been drugged, but the thought floated out of his mind, along with pretty much every other thought that tried to rear up. He had no recollection of where he was and stumbled around out of the bathroom. It was a difficult thing to do as the entire room seemed to be fading in and out of his vision and spinning. He’d tried a few drugs in his day that had this kind of effect and, under different circumstances, he might have laughed and gone with it. Today was not one of those days.
He finally managed to make his way out of the bathroom and noticed a door on the other side of the apartment. He walked toward it, but the more he walked, the further away it seemed to get. He decided to try moving faster and, a moment later, burst through the door and tumbled halfway down the back steps. He swore under his breath as he dragged himself to his feet. With some difficulty, he made it down the steps and started across the back garden. He could hear voices coming from the other side of the house and whipped his head back to look. He couldn’t see anyone, but it sounded like a mixture of a gang of helium sniffers and one very large, very unhappy bear. He decided it was best not to wait and see what came out after him and he took off running again.
“Deacon!” Michael yelled, having heard the commotion on the stairs. When he got to the back door, he found it open, but not a trace of his lover. “Shit!” he hissed and followed him out into the night. He had no idea what was going on, but he knew the man had to need his help.
As the detective got closer and closer to the river, he realized he had no idea where he was going. In fact, at this point, he wasn’t even sure why he was running. He ducked into an alley to catch his breath and try and remember what had happened. His hip was complaining and, as he looked down, he noticed the remnants of some kind of white powder on his black jogging suit. Images came flooding back to him, but they were only broken fragments that he couldn’t connect to anything. He had the vague notion that he shouldn’t have been alone, but he couldn’t remember why or whether the other person had been friend or foe.
In his panicked state, the only thing he could think of was to keep moving. Something dripped into his eye, though, causing it to sting and he reached up to find a large gash above his eye. He wiped the blood away, breathing hard and took off again. He felt of his face and noticed multiple cuts. He saw a flash of blowing powder, cried out and tried to wave it away, but it was only a memory. Suddenly, his leafy avenue gave way to a busier cross street and horns blared as he ran across the road. There was nothing between him and the river now except a long row of warehouses and a streetcar station. He made for the station, hoping to hide there.
Before he could reach the station, though, strong hands grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him toward the warehouses. Another man appeared and then another and they pulled him inside and shut the door behind them. Deacon watched in horror, trying to get a look at their faces, but they were covered with terrifying masks. They spun him around, chanting something he couldn’t make out. Their voices were distorted by the masks and the drugs in his system, but eventually he realized that they were speaking a language he didn’t know. Vaguely, he thought it might be Latin.
Laughter filled the air as the men let him go and began to circle him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a torch light up in flames and then he heard what sounded like an animal crying out in pain.
“Please, leave me alone!” he cried out, but this only drew more laughter. The men closed in on him and then one of them blew something in his face. He sucked in a breath out of surprise and with it, the powdery substance. He let out a startled yelp and then reality completely disappeared. Everything in the warehouse blurred into an incomprehensible mix of colors and sounds and fear. Shout and screams rent the air and he could make out little else besides the flames of the torch. They seemed to be everywhere at once, threatening to consume him. He could no longer make out the men, only what seemed like disembodied voices in the flames.
Deacon screamed in terror as laughing voices chased him from the warehouse. He ran a few yards and then stumbled to the ground when he tried to look behind him. To his surprise, there was no one there. He looked around, wildly, but didn’t see anyone or anything except for the streetcar station. He carefully got to his feet and hobbled toward it. Then he slumped down onto a bench and clutched at a stitch in his side. His heart was beating uncomfortably fast and he had a hard time catching his breath. The station was dim, the nearest street light having gone out, and he was grateful he didn’t have to find somewhere else to hide.
After a while, as the traffic started to slow on the busy road behind him, he felt himself drifting off to sleep. His peaceful slumber was only interrupted once, when he woke up to throw up the contents of his stomach and then pass out again.
Michael ran for what felt like hours. He knew that Deacon couldn’t have gotten far. He was probably injured, his hip was dodgy and he was, frankly not as young or in as good a shape as Michael was. Still, he knew the area better and had, somehow, managed to get away in just a few minutes. Michael ran one way down Esplanade and then another, knowing that he was risking being noticed by the neighbors. He didn’t care though. All that mattered was finding Deacon and making sure he was OK. Eventually, he turned back south and, this time, crossed all the way over to the wharf. He couldn’t see where the man could have gone, though. The warehouses were all privately owned and locked up and there was no access to the river from there.
It was then Michael spotted someone in the streetcar station. It was dark, and the person was difficult to make out, but it filled him with hope anyway. He ran in that direction and, as he got closer, he could see Deacon in his black jogging outfit, asleep on the bench. He skidded to a stop and knelt down, almost slipping in the fresh vomit. He knew something was wrong.
“Deacon?” he said, shaking the man. The sun was just starting to light the sky and he knew the streetcar would be making more frequent stops. He shook the detective again and got a small moan in return. Then he noticed a white powder covering his jacket. Before he could alleviate his curiosity, though, Deacon opened his eyes with a frown.
“Where am I?” the detective croaked.