French Silk(5)

Cassidy elbowed his way through the noisy crowd. He overheard one woman with a midwestern twang surmising that a psychopath was loose in the hotel and that they were all doomed to be slaughtered in their beds.

A man was shouting at the top of his voice that "they" were going to hear about this, although it was unclear who "they" were.

Disciples of the Reverend Jackson Wilde, upon hearing of their leader's demise, had contributed to the confusion by congregating in the lobby and making it a temporary shrine. They were weeping copiously and noisily, holding spontaneous prayer meetings, singing hymns, and invoking the Almighty's wrath on the one who had slain the televangelist.

As he made his way toward the University Street entrance, Cassidy tried to avoid the local media, but to no avail. The reporters surrounded him.

"Mr. Cassidy, did you see—"

"Nothing."

"Mr. Cassidy, was he—"

"No comment."

"Mr. Cassidy—"

"Later."

He maneuvered his way through them, dodging the cameras, deflecting extended microphones, and prudently declining to say anything until District Attorney Crowder placed him in charge of prosecuting Wilde's murder case.

Assuming Crowder would.

No, there could be no assumption to it. He must.

Cassidy wanted this case so badly he could taste it. Moreover, he needed it.

* * *

Yasmine strutted through the automatic doors at New Orleans International Airport. A redcap, dwarfed by her extraordinary height and dazzled by her legs beneath the short leather mini-skirt, trudged behind her carting two suitcases.

At the sound of a car horn, Yasmine spotted Claire's LeBaron parked at the curb as scheduled. Her suitcases were stowed inside the trunk, which Claire unlocked from the dashboard, the redcap was tipped, and Yasmine slid into the passenger seat with a flash of brown thighs and a waft of gardenia perfume.

"Good morning," Claire said. "How was your flight?"

"Can you believe it about Jackson Wilde?"

Claire Laurent glanced over her left shoulder, then daringly pulled into the erratic flow of traffic made hazardous by buses, taxis, and courtesy vans picking up and depositing airline passengers. "What's he done this time?"

"You haven't heard?" Yasmine gasped. "Jesus, Claire, what have you been doing this morning?"

"Going over invoices and… Why?"

"You didn't see any TV news? Listen to the radio?" Jasmine noticed that a cassette was playing in the car.

"I've deliberately avoided newscasts all week. I didn't want Mama to catch Jackson Wilde taking potshots at us while he's in town. By the way, we received another invitation to debate him, which I declined."

Yasmine continued to gape at her best friend and business associate. "You really don't know."

"What?" Claire asked with a laugh. "Is French Silk under attack again? What did he say this time, that we're going to burn in eternal hell? That I'd better clean up my act or else? That I'm corrupting the morals of America with my pornographic displays of the human body?"

Yasmine removed the large, dark sunglasses she wore when she didn't want to be recognized and looked at Claire with the tiger eyes that for a decade had graced the covers of countless fashion magazines. "The Reverend Jackson Wilde won't be saying anything about you anymore, Claire. He won't be badmouthing French Silk or our catalog. He won't be doin' nuthin', honey," she said, lapsing into the black lingo of her childhood. "The man has been silenced forever. The man is dead."

"Dead?" Claire braked hard, pitching them forward.

"Deader'n a doornail, as my mama used to say."

Claire stared at her, whey-faced and incredulous, and repeated, "Dead?"

"Apparently he preached one sermon too many. He pissed off someone enough to kill him."

Claire nervously wet her lips. "You mean he was murdered?"

A furious driver gave a blast of his horn. Another made an obscene gesture as he steered around them and sped past. Claire forced her foot off the brake pedal and back onto the accelerator. The car lurched.

"What's the matter with you? I thought you'd be applauding. Do you want me to drive?"

"No. No, I'm fine."

"You don't look fine. In fact you look like shit."

"I had a rough night."

"Mary Catherine?"

Claire shook her head. "Some bad dreams that have been keeping me awake."

"Dreams about what?"

"Never mind. Yasmine, you're sure about Jackson Wilde?"

"I heard it in the airport while I was waiting for my luggage. They had a TV on in the Avis booth. People were crowded around it. I asked somebody what was going on, expecting something like the Challenger explosion. This man says, 'That television preacher done got hisself shot last night.' And since I have a voodoo doll in the image of one particular television preacher, my interest was naturally piqued. I shoved my way closer to the set and heard the news for myself."

"Was he killed at the Fairmont?"

Yasmine looked at her curiously. "How'd you know that?"

"I heard that's where he was staying. From Andre."