Big Easy Escapade (18 page)

He pointed his index finger at her. “Yeah,
baby. Winning.” Then he stumbled to the left.

Vivian reached for him, then thought better
of it. “Why don’t you join us for a few minutes at the bar? We’ll
buy you a drink since you got us one the other night.”

He put his arm around Vivian and Wendy. “I’m
buying, baby.”

Vivian
gagged but walked with him.
It’s for Daisy. It’s for Daisy.

They sat down at the bar in front of the
video poker machines.

“Round of Goldschlager,” Harry yelled at the
bartender, then said to the girls, “It has real gold in it.”

The bartender grabbed the bottle from the
freezer and poured five shots.

“Wow, Harry,” Wendy said. “You must be
loaded.”

Harry didn’t catch the sarcasm. He shrugged
and picked up the clear liquid with gold floating flakes.

“To wishing Harry good luck,” Vivian said and
slammed it back.

Kate took a sip, then set the drink down on
the bar.

Wendy winced. “Cinnamon’s not my thing. Can’t
do it.”

Lucy licked her lips, then said to Harry, “So
whatcha been doing? Because I’ve gotta say, you look like you’ve
been run over by a Mardi Gras float.”

Harry hung his head. “It’s been a rough few
days. Rough few days.”

“Do you not have to be at work today?” Kate
asked.

“The fucking deal… just can’t.”

Vivian asked, “Is everything okay?”

“The love…love.” He started blubbering.

Vivian felt sorry for him and shoved a few
napkins his way.

He dabbed at his nose. “She was taken from
me.”

“Who?” Kate asked.

“My Daisy.”

“That’s horrible,” Vivian said. “Who took her
away from you?”

His cheeks flushed red and he wadded up the
napkin, throwing it to the ground. “Ever since that drummer, she’s
been different. I shoulda known he’d take her away. One way or
’nother.” He picked up Wendy’s shot and threw it back. “Jerk.”

“You poor thing,” Lucy said.

Vivian
eyed Kate’s un-shot shot.
We gotta get outta here. This guy doesn’t know
squat
.

He started crying again. “She was the only
one who cared. She loves me, I know it. After I got divorced she
would listen and make me feel better. I love… I love… I love
her.”

Vivian placed Kate’s shot in front of him.
“Harry, you hang in there. We gotta go see somebody about
something.”

He just nodded, staring into space, and wiped
away a tear.

Vivian cashed in her receipt, then led the
way to the Canal Street exit. When they sat down on the steps
outside, Vivian pulled out her phone and texted Adrienne.

Just ran into Hairy Harry at Harrah’s.

Drunk, depressed and desolate.

Def not the kidnapper.

“Well, that’s that,” Kate said. “The mirrors
brought us to Harry. We’re down to the last of my dream. The
forest.”

None of them had any new ideas there, so they
walked across Canal, heading back into the Quarter.

Just past the yogurt shop, an obnoxious guy
at a kiosk waved brochures of some local attractions at them.
“Where y’at? I have the tour for you.” He handed Kate a brochure,
and the girls kept walking.

Kate flipped it open and stopped a moment
later. “Wait, maybe we do need to do this.”

She held out a pamphlet for a cemetery tour.
The inside of a tomb adorned with mirrors in all shapes and sizes
was the centerpiece.

Kate tapped the picture. “I feel like we need
to go here.”

Lucy and Wendy were okay with it, but Vivian
hesitated. “It’s just a bunch of people put to rest above ground,
as opposed to six feet under. It’s because the ground is below sea
level.”

“But look at all the mirrors,” Wendy said.
“It could be something to do with her dream and we just don’t know
what. She’s had these freaky dreams before, and they seem to work
out.”

Vivian closed the brochure and handed it to
Kate. “Just seems a little far-fetched to me.”

Mr. Brochure bounded up next to her. “I’m
telling you ladies, this here is the crème de la crème of tours.
You’ll see some amazing things. Things you’ll never experience
anywhere else.”

“How much?” Wendy asked.

“For you beautiful ladies, $30 per
person.”

Vivian started walking. “No way in hell am I
paying 30 bucks for that.”

“Wait wait wait. How about I give you a
discount? A deep discount.”

“How deep is deep?” Wendy asked.

“For you sexy ladies a 50 percent discount.
That includes transportation to and from.”

“Does that mean we walk there?” Wendy
asked.

He started laughing. “Have you been on this
tour?”

“As a matter of fact, I have.”

“Okay, you ladies drive a hard bargain. Ten
each.”

Wendy pulled out a hundred and he had to go
back to his kiosk to make change. When he returned, he handed each
of them a sticker. “Y’all meet your tour guide at the corner of
Bourbon and Conti in an hour. Gives ya time to have a hurricane. In
fact, take one for the tour.”

“I’m not ready for a hurricane, but I could
use some yogurt,” Kate said.

They turned to go back to the yogurt shop
next to Harrah’s, but a fleet of police cars surrounded the
entrance. Detective Leffall leaned against his unmarked car, in
front of the yogurt shop, across from Harrah’s. He locked eyes with
Vivian.

“We better go find a different yogurt
shop.”

T
he girls
headed down Canal in search of a yogurt shop for Kate. They didn’t
find a yogurt shop, but an ice cream shop. Blue Bell, no less.
Brenham, Texas, home of the happiest cows in the
country.

Vivian bumped elbows with Wendy. “Remember
when we went there in elementary school? We took the train.”

Wendy opened the door, and the smell of
creamy goodness floated out. “I don’t remember that at all. I’ve
killed too many brain cells. Such a shame.”

Vivian ordered a Dutch Chocolate cone, Lucy a
cup of Vanilla Bean, Kate a double scoop cone of Southern
Blackberry Cobbler, and Wendy got her top two all-time favorites,
Key Lime and Lemon Bliss.

Vivian asked for a sample of the Key Lime
since Wendy wasn’t sharing. Chunks of graham crackers melted in her
mouth. “Mmmm.”

The girls ate their ice cream in the A/C and
waited until the last minute to walk to Bourbon and Conti for the
cemetery tour. Their guide was easily identifiable, as the grave
logo on his shirt matched their stickers.

He smiled and checked his watch as they
walked up. “Thought y’all might’ve gotten held up by a
three-for-one.” The dreads in his goatee jiggled as he talked and
matched the long, black dreads he wore pulled back.

“We were held up by ice cream,” Lucy said,
“but now we’re ready to go groovin’ with the ghosts.”

“Excellent,” he said and started walking down
Conti, a bounce in his step. He turned back to them. “I’m Lazare,
and I’m going to show you some of the coolest and creepiest graves
in New Orleans history. And the graves of my ancestors.”

He and
Wendy talked about their New Orleans ancestry as they made their
way to St. Louis Cemetery #1. She had traced her
fourth-great-grandparents to living in the Sixth
Ward in 1860. Part of his family arrived
from the Dominican Republic in the late 1700s; the other side were
prominent French Creoles. The mixture of the cultures was as common
then as it is now.

He led them through the gate and started
explaining about New Orleans being below sea level and therefore
the need to bury people above ground. “The coffins would just float
away.”

Kate shuddered.

“That’s only part of it,” Lazare said,
leading them into one of the oldest sections. “A lot of it is due
to French and Spanish tradition. This cemetery replaced the older,
and no longer in existence, St. Peter burial ground after a fire in
1788 and the city was redesigned.”

Vivian heard music in the distance. “Where’s
that music coming from?”

Lazare stopped in front of an ornate tomb and
looked to his right. “It’s a jazz funeral. They’ll be closer in a
minute, you’ll see,” he said, then got back to his history lesson.
“Who here is a gambler?”

All the girls looked at Vivian. She
waved.

“Then you would have liked Monsieur Bernard
de Maringy. Not only was he a playboy, he brought the game of craps
to America.”

Vivian rubbed her hand on the stone wall.
“Thank you, sir. Wish me luck later tonight!”

Lazare laughed and kept moving, pointing out
a grave covered in skulls, one built in brick and crumbling, and
one with a guardian angel on top, keeping watch.

Vivian stopped in front of one and giggled.
“Who was this? He has a funny name.”

“Homer Plessy. He was the plaintiff in the
civil rights Supreme Court case in 1896.”

Lazare had them scoot back about a minute
later as the jazz funeral walked slowly by, playing a dirge. A man
in a top hat, wearing a sash and carrying a parasol, led a tuba,
three trombones, two trumpeters and a drummer, followed by the
mourners.

The band
started up a festive tune and Vivian thought,
I wouldn’t
mind being sent off like that.
She watched as the mourners turned down another row and
started dancing, several with feather boas and one with a
tambourine.

Kate pulled out the brochure for the cemetery
tour and tapped on the picture with the mirrors. “Where’s this
tomb?”

“It’s on the opposite side of the cemetery,
but I’ll take you there. We’ll go past Marie Laveau’s resting place
on the way.” Lazare started down a narrow row and they had to turn
sideways to pass another tour group, all wearing bright yellow
matching shirts.

He stopped at a tomb with messages scribbled
on the walls and a circle of shells in front of the door. Inside
the circle was a cigarette, a praline and some loose change.

“It is believed that Voodoo Queen Marie
Laveau is interred here with the Glapion family. People leave
offerings to her and write well wishes or prayers on the
walls.”

Lucy tossed a few coins inside the shell
circle. “For Daisy’s safe return.”

Kate snapped a picture of Lazare with the
other three girls, then he took them over three rows. “This is
where my lighter side originated. Mr. Vignaud met my
great-great-great-great-grandmother at a ball and had a little too
much fun. He at least put her up in a small shack and made sure she
and the baby were clothed and fed.”

Vivian looked at the other names, birth and
death dates on the crypt. “So it looks like they got married?”

Lazare laughed. “Why, yes, he got married,
but not to my grandmother. She remained his mistress, though, for
the rest of his life. They actually had three children
together.”

Kate gasped. “You mean he had a whole second
family?”

“It wasn’t as rare as you’d think.”

They walked for a few minutes before reaching
the mirrored grave. Vivian felt like somebody was watching her and
looked around. Not seeing anyone, she dismissed it as the cemetery
creeps.

Lazare led them to a taller structure with a
trio of steeples. “This is the Duplantier family tomb. We’ll have
to go around the back to see inside.”

They shuffled along the pebbles to the back,
where a circular opening about the size of a basketball gave view
of the inside. Vivian, at 5-4, had to stand on her tippy toes to
look in.

“There used to be stained glass here, but
it’s been long broken out.”

All different shapes and sizes of mirrors
lined the walls. The window was so high Vivian couldn’t see the
floor, but she could see several crypts on one side and mementos on
the other.

“Let Kate see,” Wendy said.

Kate stepped up to the window. Three inches
taller than Vivian, she had an easier time seeing everything inside
and took a good, long look.

Short little Lucy tried to see past Kate’s
head. “You getting anything?”

Kate sighed and turned around, looking behind
Vivian. “No, nothing. But who is that?” She pointed a few rows
over.

Everyone turned to look, but no one saw
anything.

“That’s one of our friendly ghosts,” Lazare
said with a smile, then he looked at Lucy. “You want a boost?”

“No, I’m okay.”

Kate kept looking around the cemetery. “I
swear I saw somebody.”

“Let’s check it out,” Vivian said. “You
lead.”

Kate walked past Vivian, and the rest of the
group followed. “He had blond hair and I swear I’ve seen him
before.” She walked several more rows and looked around, then went
left. She stopped again and covered her nose and mouth. “Do you
smell that?”

Vivian sniffed. “Smell what?”

Kate took a few more steps, then stopped.
Slowly, she turned to the group and stiffened. Eyes wide and hands
still covering her nose and mouth, she said, “It smells like
death.”

V
ivian
held her breath and stood frozen in the cemetery. Scared to keep
going and needing oxygen, she inhaled quickly but didn’t pick up on
the scent of death that Kate was experiencing.

Kate walked down the row a little more,
stopped in front of a small, crumbling tomb and pointed to the
ground. “This is it.”

The grass in front of the door was pulled
away, but it looked like someone had tried to push it back
down.

Lazare followed Kate, examining the writing
on the entrance. “I don’t recognize this family name, but
regardless, something’s not right.”

“Exactly,” Kate said and took two steps back.
“You should look inside. I’m not going any further.” She walked to
Lucy, grabbed her arm and pulled her away. “I might be sick.”