Killers of a Certain Age(40)

But there are lots of ways to disappear in a city like New Orleans. After another quarter hour of ear-numbing wind blowing off the river, I heard a second line parade coming down the street. I hurtled down the stairs to the lobby, taking them two at a time and praying my knees would hold up. In the gift shop I found a pair of oversized Mardi Gras sunglasses and a handful of throws, which I layered over a sweatshirt decorated with a sequined crawfish that told everyone to laissez les bon temps roulez. I looked like any tacky middle-aged tourist from Omaha loose in the Big Easy.

I slipped out the door of the hotel in time to join the end of the parade. At the front, two grooms wearing Tom Ford tuxedos held hands up high, showing off their shiny new wedding rings. The band played “Breezin’ Along with the Breeze” and everyone sang along, waving handkerchiefs and holding up champagne flutes to toast onlookers. A bridesmaid who was three sheets to the wind was drinking directly out of a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and she held it up to me.

“Hey, stranger! You need to party with us!” She handed the bottle over and I took a swig. The champagne was tepid and nearly flat, but I didn’t care. I passed it back and raised my voice as we stepped down Royal Street and into the night.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN



I left the parade just behind the cathedral, where a floodlight casts a giant statue of Jesus on the church’s back wall. Shadow Jesus had his arms outstretched as if asking for a hug, but I walked on by, taking the long way around until I finally got to the gate on Ursulines, buzzing myself in. The others were in the kitchen, hunkered around the table with cups of coffee so cold they had scummed over on the top.

Minka hurled herself on me, exclaiming in Ukrainian, until Mary Alice pried her off to hug me. Helen took a turn, but Nat was the most practical, shoving a hot cup of tea into my chilled hands. “Drink,” she ordered, and I raised a brow.

“What?” she demanded. “I can nurture.”

“Yes, you can,” I agreed, wrapping my numb fingers around the cup.

“Are we safe here?” Helen asked. She was clasping and unclasping her hands, as if she needed something to hang on to.

“For a little while. I had a tail but I lost him. Nielssen.”

Go bags were piled by the door along with the cat carrier. Kevin himself was in Akiko’s arms, lapping at her cup of coffee while she stared straight ahead, her expression blank. I looked at Mary Alice and jerked my head towards her wife.

“She okay?”

“I’m processing,” Akiko said in a stilted voice. “You just killed someone. They said you killed someone.”

“He was going to kill me. Actually, all four of us,” I assured her. “I mean, if that helps.”

She nodded slowly. “I think it does.”

I turned to the others. Natalie gestured towards my sweatshirt and throws.

“I like the new look. Not everybody can pull off Shitty Tourist, but you really make it work.”

“Thanks, I’m getting you one tomorrow.”

Helen fixed me a plate of food—I didn’t even bother to notice what it was. I shoveled it in while Nat kept the tea coming.

As I ate, Mary Alice looked around. “Time for a postmortem?”

“Tacky,” Natalie said.

Mary Alice’s expression was mystified. “That’s what we’ve always called it.”

“A friend is dead,” Helen reminded her. “Maybe we should just call it a discussion.”

Mary Alice shrugged but didn’t argue.

“A friend who was ready to kill me,” I corrected. I filled them in on what Sweeney had told me, and their reactions were predictable. Affronted—Helen; outraged—Natalie; and practical—Mary Alice.

The one part I left out was Helen freezing when I’d signaled her to shoot.

Natalie folded her arms over her narrow chest. “Are you sure it was necessary for you to take him out? I mean, it was supposed to be up to Helen to take the shot.”

I glanced at Helen but she said nothing. “I made a choice.”

Natalie snorted. “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time you poached a target.”

“No, Natalie, it wouldn’t. I have occasionally taken point on a job when it wasn’t my responsibility because—” I looked at the naked, broken anguish in Helen’s eyes and swerved from what I was going to say. “Because I made a judgment call. He was planning on eliminating all four of us. He only delayed because he was trying to get me to tell him where the rest of you were,” I finished.

“You didn’t have a choice,” Mary Alice said firmly.

“Poor dumbass Sweeney,” Natalie murmured.

Helen looked down at the ground and continued to say nothing.

Akiko roused herself when I finished. “Shorthand this for me,” she said. “Please. I want to understand.”

I wiped my mouth on a napkin and put it aside. “When we realized the organization we work for—”

“The Museum,” Akiko put in.

“The Museum.” I nodded. “When we realized the organization we work for targeted us for termination, we contacted a former associate of ours to find out why.”

“And that was this Sweeney person?” she asked.

“Correct. Our rendezvous with him was supposed to give us information about what was going on. We were careful enough to meet him in a neutral location, but it turns out we shouldn’t have trusted him at all. He came to kill us, Akiko.”