Big Easy Escapade (20 page)

A dog barked and Vivian jumped, then she
started giggling.

“Shhhh!” Wendy said.

“I’m sorry, it’s nerves, and maybe the wine.
And now I need to pee!”

“You’re gonna have to hold it,” Lucy
said.

“Screw that, I’m going to knock on the door.”
Vivian said, then marched toward the house. The overgrown grass
brushed against her legs and the screen door hung loosely on one
hinge. The girls waited on the driveway while she walked onto the
porch and rang the doorbell. No answer, no sounds coming from the
house.

She carefully moved the screen door and
jiggled the door handle but it was locked. Hopping off the porch,
she waved for the girls to follow and went around back. She
bypassed the dilapidated detached garage and walked up the back
stoop.

“What are you doing?” Kate asked as Vivian
tried the back door.

It, too, was locked. “I’ve gotta go and we
might as well check out the inside.” She leaned over and tried the
window. Locked.

“You’re probably better off in the weeds back
here,” Lucy said. “I bet these boys are disgusting.”

“Are you insane?” Kate said, “these guys
could be killers. No way, you’re not going in there.”

Vivian walked to another window on the back
of the house and tried it. Locked. “They’re not home and we’ll be
quick.”

“What if they’re not answering for a reason?
Like they have Daisy?”

“Then we need to get her.”

Wendy started walking to the detached garage.
“I’m going to see if there’s a gray Mustang in here before we go
into this house. If there is, we’re calling the cops and they can
go in.”

She peered through a dirty window on the
garage door. “Nothing but a bunch of junk. We’re clear.”

Lucy looked at Kate. “Aren’t you supposed to
be the lookout?”

“Oh yeah,” Kate snapped her fingers. “The
wine made me forget.” She walked to the corner of the house. “I’ll
call if there’s any movement.”

Vivian tried the knob again, then kicked at
the doggie door. The plastic flap swayed back and forth, and she
suddenly really regretted those mashed potatoes. “We need
Kate.”

Lucy hustled around the house and came back
with a reluctant Kate. Vivian pointed to the doggie door.

“No way, not happening, not in a million
years. Never.”

“Oh come on, it’s for Daisy.”

Vivian looked to Lucy.

“Screw you, my boobs would never fit in
there.”

Vivian nodded in agreement, then looked at
Wendy.

“Have you seen these hips?”

Kate sighed and dropped her shoulders.
“Dammit, you girls need to lose some weight or boobs or hips or
something. This is total crap. I’m supposed to keep watch in case
they come home. If I get abducted, killed or eaten by a dog or some
other animal, you totally owe me.”

With that she dropped on all fours and lifted
the flap, then turned to Vivian. “It’s dark, I can’t see
anything.”

“See if you can reach the door handle.”

Kate reached her arm in and frowned. She
sighed again. “Fuck it.” Then she disappeared through the doggie
door.

T
he lock
clicked on Kevin and Devin’s back door and Kate swung the door
open. “Let’s get this over with.”

Lucy stepped inside. “It’s dark in here.
Where’s the light?”

Vivian hit a button to wake up her phone. “We
snuck in here, we can’t turn on any lights.”

Just as she finished saying that, Lucy hit
the wall switch and a dim light over the kitchen sink flickered. A
roach skittered across the floor and they all screamed.

“Turn off the light!” Wendy yelled. “I have a
flashlight app on my phone, but I don’t know how much of this
nasty-ass house we want to see.”

Lucy flipped the light off and Wendy pulled
up her app. They let their eyes adjust to the darkness before they
moved into the living room.

“What are we looking for?” Kate asked,
clinging onto Vivian’s shirt.

“Any sign that Daisy’s been here or that they
have anything to do with her disappearance.”

Beer cans and a pizza box sat on a coffee
table in front of an orange, yellow and green plaid couch. A gaming
console and two controllers sat on the floor beside it. The smell
of stale beer, musty carpet and body odor drove the girls upstairs,
to the bedrooms, which didn’t smell any better, though one had a
faint scent of weed.

Vivian opened the lid to a cigar box on the
dresser. “What do we have here?” Inside the wooden box sat a
package of Zig Zag rolling papers, a lighter, a glass pipe and a
baggie of pot. Vivian pulled the seal apart and sniffed. “This
could be Maui Wowie.”

Wendy snatched the bag and took a whiff.
“What? How can you tell?”

“I can’t. I just like to say Maui Wowie.”

“Y’all put that back,” Kate said, taking the
baggie and returning it to the cigar box. “We get into enough
trouble as it is. Don’t need to get busted with pot, too.”

Wendy shone the phone light around the room.
A guitar sat propped in a corner and pornographic magazines were
strewn next to the bed. Dirty clothes lay all around.

“Check out this monster flashlight,” Lucy
said. She picked it up from the nightstand and tried to turn it on.
“I think it’s broken, I can’t even get the switch to move.”

Vivian saw a bottle of lubricant on the
nightstand and gasped. “Oh my gosh, Lucy, put it down! Put it
down!”

Lucy
dropped it and the end popped off. “What the —”

A skin-toned blob was exposed.

“Eeeew! Gross! It’s a Fleshlight!” Vivian
hopped up and down, shaking her hands. “Go disinfect yourself,
Lucy! Hurry!”

Lucy ran into the bathroom, flipped on the
light and reached for the hot water knob. “This place is
disgusting!”

“I suddenly don’t need to pee anymore,”
Vivian said and turned off the light, using her phone to search for
the soap.

An orange and blue container sat on the back
of the toilet, “GoJo pumice hand cleaner.” While Lucy lathered up,
Vivian looked around, searching for any sort of feminine products.
Not seeing anything, she waited for Lucy to finish up. After a few
minutes of intense scrubbing, she declared her hands as clean as
they could be under the circumstances, and wiped them on her
shirt.

Wendy hovered over the Fleshlight with her
flashlight. “This thing freaks me out. I’ve never seen anything
like it.”

“Is that for what I think it’s for?” Kate
asked.

“Uh, yes,” Vivian said and nodded toward the
bottle on the nightstand. “That’s some quality lube he’s got there.
He doesn’t skimp.”

Wendy moved to the door. “We need to wrap
this up. Let’s not touch anything — nothing, nada — in the other
bedroom.”

The girls agreed and moved to the second
bedroom, looking for anything that indicated Daisy had been
there.

A shrill ring pierced the quiet. All the
girls jumped and Lucy knocked over a glass bong that sat on the
dresser. Dark, stale water poured out of it. The stench was
overwhelming.

Vivian looked at her cell phone screen and
answered the call. “Hey, Adrienne, I can only talk for a second.
We’re in the house looking for clues.”

“Get out of there now!” Adrienne yelled.

Vivian had to hold her phone away from her
ear. “We’re going, we’re going.”

“I’m serious. Right now.”

“Okay, okay.” She moved to the stairs. The
other girls followed.

“Antonio said those guys are known to shoot
first, ask questions later. Get out.”

Vivian hit the bottom stair as headlights
glared through the front window. An old truck pulled into the
driveway and continued to the back of the house.

“Shit, gotta go. We’ve got brother trouble.”
Click.

“Out the front!” Wendy whispered and led the
way with her phone light.

The engine turned off and the hinges of the
door squeaked.

It was hard to see, and Vivian kicked a beer
can across the room. The crash reverberated, sounding much louder
than it actually was.

Wendy fumbled with the front door lock as a
key was inserted into the back door.

“Open it! Open it!” Kate squealed.

Wendy yanked the door and the four ran out,
leaving it open behind them. Lucy took the lead, hauling ass down
the street, then turned on the corner and ducked behind a parked
car. The other girls caught up, gasping for breath, listening.

One of the brothers yelled into the darkness.
“Stay the fuck outta my house, mothafuckers!” He ratcheted a
shotgun. “Sonsabitches!”

V
ivian,
Kate, Wendy and Lucy took off again, back toward Canal. They came
to a place called Venezia’s, decided they needed a drink, and took
a small table in the bar.

“Geezus hell, that was close!” Vivian’s heart
raced and she wiped at her forehead with a napkin. “That’s the most
running I’ve done since I thought I was going to be bear kibble in
Colorado.”

Kate
shook her head. “I can’t believe I crawled on that floor and had to
look at some nasty guy’s sex toy.” She stood. “I’m going to go wash
my hands. Get me a water, please. That wine earlier messed with my
head. I went through a
doggie
door.”

Wendy laughed. “It got a little hairy, but we
made it. Way to go, girls!”

Lucy hopped up. “Thanks for reminding me.
I’ve got to go wash again, too. Order me a vodka tonic.
Double.”

The bartender was on his way over when he was
stopped by a man with silver-white hair and wearing a navy blue
suit. He scribbled in the air, then reached for a napkin.

The bartender handed him a pen and walked
over to the girls. “What can I get for y’all?”

Vivian was about to order when she heard the
man at the bar repeat the address they had just fled from.

The man said, “I’ll go check it out. I’m
leaving right now. Call you back.” He walked out the door.

Vivian turned her attention back to the
bartender and ordered a Dos Equis and Lucy’s double.

After the bartender walked off, Vivian looked
at Wendy. “Did you just hear what that man said?” Wendy looked
around. “What man?”

“The older guy who was just at the bar. He
was talking to someone on the phone and repeated Kevin and Devin’s
address, then said he’d go check on it.”

Lucy and Kate came back to the table.

“What’s up with those freaks’ address?” Lucy
asked. Vivian caught them up.

“Hmmm,” Kate said. “What’s he going to check
on? Did we miss something to do with Daisy?”

“We’re not going back,” Lucy said. “He had a
gun.”

The drinks were delivered and the girls began
to relax a little. The first drinks went down smooth so they
ordered another round. Lucy only got a single this time.

Midway through drink two, the silver-haired
man came back into the restaurant. He glanced at Vivian as he
walked by. He then got out his phone and said to someone, “What did
you say they looked like?” He listened for a minute, then said,
“What’s her name?” Then he looked back at Vivian and said, “You
Vivian?”

She nodded.

“You need to call Adrienne.”

“Oh shit, okay. Thanks.” She pulled out her
phone, which said she’d missed seven calls, all from Adrienne.
“Oops.” She dialed and Adrienne answered on the first ring.

“You scared me to death,” Adrienne
yelled.

“Sorry, sorry. I had put my phone on silent
after your earlier call scared the hell out of us! We’re even.”

“What happened?”

“We ran out the front as they came in the
back. Then one of the brothers came out with a gun. Needless to say
we won’t be going back.”

“Hell no, you aren’t going back,” Adrienne
said. “That was too close, but I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Did Detective Leffall get Hairy Harry at
Harrah’s?”

“Sure did and promptly interviewed him. He
says he paid $15,000 for a boat and gambled away the rest of the 20
large at the casino.”

“Have the cops been able to find the
boat?”

“They’re working on it. Antonio said Harry,
though sleazy, seemed like he was telling the truth. They asked
about the money several different ways and his answers were all the
same.”

“Thanks, A.” Vivian signed off, then told the
girls about the money.

Kate set down her glass of water. “That story
ought to be easy enough to prove.”

“A bill of sale and the actual boat,” Wendy
said.

Vivian took a sip of her beer. “He did seem
genuinely upset about her.”

“Poor Harry,” Lucy said. “He’s just a big
hairy mess.”

“I wonder how Jason’s holding up?” Kate
asked. “Maybe we should call him?”

“Good idea.” Vivian dialed his number.

“Hi, Vivian.”

“Hey. How you doing?”

“Daisy’s story is going to be on the 10
o’clock news. They interviewed me about an hour ago.”

“That’s awesome! Hope it turns up some
leads.”

“And the cops were able to track down the two
guys who tried to break in the back door to the club. They’re about
to go bust their apartment.”

“How’d they figure out who they were?”

“Searching cameras from nearby stores. These
guys stole a case of beer from a convenience store and they were
able to get a license plate number.”

“
Well,
that’s something.”
They don’t seem like the most savvy
criminals
.

Jason sounded a little dejected after saying
it out loud. “Yeah, it’s something.”

“We’ll be looking for you on the news.”
Vivian clicked off and relayed his info to the girls.

“Guess Adrienne lit a fire that Al is
fanning,” Kate said. “It’s about time the media took notice.”

“Hell yeah, but what are we going to do
tonight?” Lucy asked. “We have some time to kill before Lala
Lollipop rips off her wrapper at Rick’s, and Jonathon wants us to
meet him at Tipitina’s. He said a really great band, Trombone
Shorty and Orleans Avenue, are playing tonight. He knows someone
and can get us in.”