Killers of a Certain Age(32)

“Not on the phone,” I told him. “I can meet you tomorrow in New Orleans.”

“Tomorrow? Not a chance,” he said flatly. “It’s New Year’s Eve.”

“Shit,” I said. I’d lost track of the time. “Wednesday, then. The second.”

“Gimme a minute. I need something to write with. Where the hell are my glasses?” he mumbled.

“On your head,” I told him.

“Hey, how did you know? Can you see me?”

“Sweeney, I’m not in Kansas City, peering in your windows. I guessed.”

“I gotta say, I’m a little disappointed,” he replied. He was quiet a minute and I heard him tapping away on a keyboard.

“Okay, I found a flight first thing Wednesday morning. I’ll arrive about three. Where do you want to meet?”

“Jackson Square, four o’clock.”

“How will I find you?”

“I don’t know yet, but don’t worry. I’ll find you. If anything comes up or you’re delayed, then meet me at the Sazerac Bar at the Roosevelt Hotel at nine pm. If you can’t make that, leave a message with the bartender. Got it?”

“Why can’t I just call you back?”

“Because I’m throwing this phone away as soon as I hang up.”

“Shit, you are in trouble, aren’t you?”

“I think so.”

He sighed. “I’ll be there.”

“Safe travels.”

I pressed the little red phone icon before he could answer. I powered off the phone as I walked towards the Cabildo, the museum tucked just to the west of the cathedral. A small street with nice wide gutters ran beside it. I didn’t even have to break stride as I let the phone slip out of my grasp and into the storm drain.

I cut through the little alley between the Cabildo and the cathedral. Here and there, doorways sat in pools of light with long shadows stretching in between. Most were occupied with vagrants stretched out on their beds of flattened cardboard, but in the last doorway, a clown sat on the steps, holding up a piece of broken mirror as he applied his greasepaint. I pulled out a five-dollar bill and dropped it into his tip bucket as I passed. There was nothing else in the bucket except for a few dimes. Hard week to be a clown, I guessed. I started to walk away, but he called me back.

“Hey, lady.” The clown held something out. It was a laminated prayer card, the kind you buy in church gift stores. This one was worn and soft with age. The picture was of a man in a red robe carrying a toddler across a river, both of them wearing sunny halos.

“St. Christopher,” he said. But I already knew that. The image matched the small medal I wore on a thin chain around my neck.

“Thanks,” I said, pocketing the card.

“Happy fucking New Year,” said the clown.

“You too.”

I tightened my scarf as the wind rose, and I headed for home.





CHAPTER TWELVE


JANUARY 1979


The swear jar on Constance Halliday’s desk is kept full by Natalie and Billie. Helen is too ladylike to let the profanity fly, and Mary Alice uses bad words like someone speaking a foreign language.

Under Miss Halliday’s tutelage, the four learn how to eat fish with two forks and sip from a soupspoon without making a noise. She teaches them how to exit a car without showing their underwear, to waltz like Viennese debutantes, and to hot-wire an automobile in under twenty seconds. They build bombs, decipher codes, learn how to shake a tail and how to kill. They master suffocation and stabbing, the intricacies of poison and garrote. Constance Halliday does not like military-grade weapons, finding them unsubtle and flashy, but she ensures the foursome are thoroughly grounded in firearms although she makes no secret of her preference for bare hands and improvised weapons. Ballpoint pens, jump ropes, sewing needles—they learn lethal uses for all of them.

And each develops her specialty. Natalie loves anything that makes a noise, bombs and grenades and the biggest guns she can get her tiny hands around. Mary Alice discovers an affinity for poisons, slipping harmless substances into the food Miss Halliday serves in order to practice her sleight of hand. Her spare time is spent mixing up enough toxic messes to immobilize an army. Helen, surprisingly, turns out to be a sharpshooter, her eye for detail serving her well as she marks changes in wind and estimated trajectories. She is so skilled, in fact, that Constance allows her to borrow her favorite weapon, a tidy little Colt .38 that has been fitted with a hammer shroud to keep it tucked neatly into a pocket. There are nicks on the handgrip, slash marks that they suspect are kill notches, but no one dares to ask.

But Billie Webster is a struggle for Constance Halliday. She is fair with a grenade and can handle a gun almost as well as Helen, but she doesn’t like it. Her attention wanders, and she takes to shooting wide of the targets just to see what else she can hit. When she takes out the eye of Constance Halliday’s favorite garden sculpture—an evil-looking iron rabbit—Miss Halliday raps her sharply on the shoulder with her stick.

“My office, Miss Webster. If you please.”

Billie mutters under her breath but follows. She has not been in the office since the day of their arrival and she soon realizes this is not a social visit. Miss Halliday doesn’t invite her to sit down, so Billie keeps to her feet, gaze fixed on the painting behind Constance’s desk—a nymph of some sort with stars in her hands and a regretful expression.