Remember the Future (9 page)

3

“How much?”

Rudy looked up into the rear view mirror at Maddy as the Mercedes rocketed down the Pontchartrain Expressway.  He honked his horn angrily at an eighteen-wheeler lazily veering into his lane.  “How much what?”

“I thought about it and I think he’s right.  It’s not about the money at all, and you don’t care do you?”

Grant watched Maddy keenly as she leaned determinedly forward in her seat.

“Everybody has their price,” Maddy continued.  “Torres either pays you very well or you feel loyalty towards him or…”  She started to shake her head then studied him in the mirror.  “Maybe that’s it then.”

As the car in front of him started to brake, Rudy blasted his horn and cut around him back into flowing traffic as the driver gave him the finger in return.

“Does Torres have something on you?” Maddy asked him.  “Are you afraid of him?”

Rudy’s lips hardened into a thin white line.  He accelerated the Mercedes even faster, cutting again around a slower moving car.

“I’m assuming you know why Torres is doing what he’s doing,” Maddy continued.  “Either you approve of the death of the man sitting in your backseat or you’re in fear of your life if you questioned the judgment of your boss.”

Rudy glared up into the mirror then looked away.  After a moment, he snorted derisively.  “I’ve heard them beg and I’ve heard them talk trash, lady.  This is an original.”

Maddy exchanged a single quick glance with Grant before turning back to Rudy.

“An animal doesn’t distinguish between right and wrong.  It goes to whoever feeds it,” she continued, her voice, instead of increasing in volume, actually dimming to a whisper just loud enough for the man in the front seat to hear.  “You’re a man, Rudy, isn’t that what you tell yourself.  And when a man takes easy money without regard to self-respect, well, isn’t that the dictionary term for a prostitute?”

Rudy locked half-crazed eyes on her through the mirror.

“You called me a whore, but isn’t that what you really are, Rudolph,” she whispered, leaning slightly closer to him.  “A whore?”

Glancing quickly back, Rudy twisted around and blindly reached his arm over the seat to grab her.

Maddy threw herself back, just not quick enough.  His hand snagged her collar.

Grant grabbed Rudy’s wrist as Maddy let out a piercing shriek.

Through the windshield, Grant watched as their car veered violently to the right.

Attempting to regain control of the car, Rudy over-corrected.  The Mercedes cut across the lane of an eighteen wheeler, careened out of control, and spun completely around to face the other direction.

Grant leapt over and grabbed Maddy protectively in his arms as an SUV struck them from behind and sent the driver’s side crashing into the guard rail.

Lifting their heads, Grant and Maddy peered around the cabin.

Glass covered the dashboard.  Rudy rested with his head against the wheel.  Grant could see blood beneath his nose.

“Now c’mon,” Maddy commanded, leaping past Grant’s stunned face and slipping out of the passenger side door with her satchel in hand.

Leaning forward, Grant gripped Rudy’s shoulder.  “You okay?”

Rudy lifted his head and blinked foggily up at Grant.  The blood from his nose didn’t seem quite so copious from this distance, he thought.  Probably just a busted nose and not a skull fracture.

Grant felt a tug on his arm and stumbled out into the freeway alongside Maddy, surrounded by stalled, honking cars.

“He’ll live,” Maddy snapped, tossing the satchel at Rudy through the shattered front passenger’s side window.  “There’s at least twenty grand cash in that bag.  Give it to your boss and tell him to call off the dogs.  You understand me?”

Rudy doesn’t react.  He wiped at his nose, blinking in disbelief at the blood on his knuckles.

Sticking his head back in through the window, Grant called out to Rudy above the noise of the cars around them.  “Hang on.  We’re going to get you some help.”

“Get out of here,” Rudy mumbled, shaking his head in frustration and laying his head back down against the wheel.  “Goddamn boy scout.”

Maddy cut around the back of the car and into the high-weeds of the shoulder, hauling Grant behind her by his arm.  She swung one leg over the guardrail then looked down the slope of hill stretching out below them.

Acres of above-ground crypts stretched out as far as the eye could see. A city of the dead.

“What about all the other people that were in the accident?” Grant sputtered, giving her his hand and helping her over the guardrail, but still looking back over his shoulder at the mess on the highway they were leaving behind.  In the distance, he could hear an ambulance.

“Listen, help is on its way,” Maddy told him.  “You’re not running away.”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” he protested, following her over the railing.

“How are you going to spend the last hours of your life?” she snapped.  “I don’t plan to waste one minute filling out paperwork with a traffic cop.”  That being said, Maddy began the descent down the sharp grassy incline toward the cemetery, carefully avoiding the discarded items of trash and broken bottles that lay like hidden mines throughout the tall weeds.

Grant gave her a look as if registering for the first time his position relative to the man that remained behind in the Mercedes—the man whose sole purpose was to deliver him to a gangster who would see him dead.  Giving one final look back at the Mercedes, Grant started the forty-five degree march down.  He quickly lost his balance, dropped to his bottom, and sailed past Maddy on the seat of his pants—half-sliding, half-rolling to the foot of a chain-link fence bordering a gravel-lined railroad track and came to an abrupt stop.

Maddy dashed the last few steps down the incline and offered him a hand, hiding a smirk.

Ignoring her, Grant rose to his feet and looked grimly at the fence and the railroad track on the other side.

“They’re coming,” Maddy exclaimed, looking with wide-eyes back over her shoulder.

Following her line-of-sight, Grant could barely see the tops of the cars from his position, but he trusted her observation regardless.  Before them was a foot-trail, obviously made by ambitious young explorers (or possibly the homeless).

“C’mon,” Grant said, taking Maddy by the hand and pulling her along behind him down the dirt trail.

“What are we looking for?”

“How the locals get through,” Grant replied.  Rushing forward, he found a gap in the fence, and held the frayed ends open for Maddy to squeeze through.  He quickly followed.

They scrambled over the empty railroad tracks and headed toward the seven and a half foot graffiti-covered wall, razor-wire lining the top.  Taking her hand, Grant tugged her down the dirt trail between the track and the wall.

Maddy gave their interlocked hands brief contemplation before looking ahead toward the patch of wall Grant was angling toward.  Coming to a stop, Grant released her hand and examined the wall.  About five and a half feet up was a wide two foot by two foot square of missing bricks covered from view on the inside of the wall by a large tree.  At their feet lay remnants of a wooden pallet, all that was left of the method the explorers had gained access to the cemetery.

While Grant ran his fingers along the edge of the opening and attempted to see inside, Maddy crouched beside the wall and studied its base.  Finding an un-mortared brick a few feet from the ground, she worked it loose and began to slide it out.

Grant stooped and together they slid the wide brick out until it stuck out like a makeshift shelf below the gap in the wall.  Hopping up, Grant stuck his head through the hole in the wall and found a crawlspace behind what looked like an enormous azalea bush.

“ ‘Enter through the narrow gate,’ ” Maddy whispered at Grant’s back.  “ ‘For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction.’ ”

Grant withdrew his head and cast a concerned look back at Maddy.  “Um… yeah.  Maybe I should go first,” he suggested, diving arms-first through the hole, as Maddy looked nervously back the way they had come.

4

As the sound of ambulances grew louder, the passenger side door of the Mercedes opened. Rudy lifted his head weakly and tried to turn his head to see who was rooting around in the backseat of his car.

But he knew without seeing.  It was Them.  The fullbacks in raincoats.

The taller of the Blank Men clucked his tongue at Rudy then reached down to pop the trunk with the lever below the seat.

Blinking rapidly to try and clear the blurriness in his vision, Rudy peered around at his side mirror as the second shorter of the two men lifted the trunk.  “Whateryoudoin?”

The first Blank Man reached through the window and grasped Rudy’s nose between two meaty fingers.  “Gotcha nose,” he said in a teasing voice.

Rudy howled in pain and struggled to reach around but fell weakly back to the wheel.

“We need to go,” the second voice snapped.

Rudy peered past the first figure.  The second Blank Man appeared, with Pepe's coffin beneath his arm just as the first man slapped his black-gloved hand over Rudy’s mouth.

Rudy’s eyes widened.  He could get very little oxygen through the broken nose filled with phlegm and congealing blood.  He could not breathe!

He began to struggle, feeling real panic for the first time in a very long while.

No final taunts were exchanged.  The dark man in the shadows of his Mercedes simply watched him with an almost analytical curiosity.  Try as he could, Rudy could not get a good look at his face.  His vision and his mind remained fuzzy.

Rudy resisted, steadying his heart rate and retaining what remained of the air in his lungs for what last moments he had left.

I will not give this bastard the satisfaction of dying like a scared little bitch
, he thought morbidly.

The sirens grew louder.

“No more time.”

The pressure against his mouth disappeared and Rudy gasped in sweet air, color rushing back into the bluish skin of his face.

“Wish we had a few more moments to talk, Pedroza,” the first Blank Man said, giving him a pat on the head like an adult might give a small child.  “We’ll be in touch.”

As the white spots on the edge of his vision slowly dissolved, Rudy focused on taking in one breath after another—in-out, in-out, in-out--all the while trying to ignore the fact that they had taken Pepe’s corpse.

But none of that seemed as important as the reality of how close he had come to that old acquaintance Death.  Only this time instead of some other unlucky sap, the Old Man had been paying him a visit.

5

Sliding roughly on her belly over the edge of the hole in the wall, Maddy felt Grant’s hands around her waist as he guided her down to the ground.  She landed with a bit of a blush, one which was easily concealed within the shade of the enormous azalea bush she found herself shielded beneath.

“Looks like a big place,” Grant whispered, stepping casually out into the open and staring down from the small hill they stood atop at acres and acres of enormous crypts of stone separated by well-manicured grass and sidewalks.  Some appeared to be miniature buildings topped with ornate crosses, while others were statues of human beings or angels in mid-flight.

“This is either Metairie or Greenwood.  I can’t recall which,” Maddy answered in the same hushed tone.  “All I know is that they’re not open to the public yet.”

“Why are you whispering?” he asked her
.
“
We’re not likely to wake anyone up.”

She shrugged.  “You started it.”

“Where’s the way out?”

Maddy turned a slow circle then pointed to the northeast where some of the larger crypts seemed to be.  “That direction?”

“You sound uncertain.”

“Well yeah.  I’ve never been here before,” she replied, starting down the wide open path between crypts.  “Anything I know was gathered from travel books about this city.  This is one of the better kept cemeteries.  The ones closer to the Quarter are in serious disrepair.  Crypts falling apart.  Graffiti everywhere.”

Grant fell into step next to her.  It was eerily like walking through an abandoned, immaculately-kept city in miniature.  All the lawns were perfectly trimmed and the tiny streets clear of litter.  Only there were no people—rather, none above ground.  “How far?”

“This is like some kind of a dream,” she whispered in awe, gazing around with a child-like smile on her face.  Suddenly she grabbed his arm and shook him roughly.  “I still can’t believe we’re in New Orleans!”

Grant recovered and put a discreet distance between them.  “And if this were a pleasure cruise, a cemetery wouldn’t be one of the hot spots on my list,” he said with an unconscious shudder.  “The only saving grace is that it’s daytime.”

“Is it freaking you out a little?” she asked, giving him a look of interest.

“No,” Grant retorted a bit too sharply.   He increased his speed slightly.  “How big is this damn place?”

“No idea,” she admitted, double-stepping to catch up to Grant.  “There’s a hundred or so acres of dead folks in here.  In fact, I think Louis Prima’s grave is around here somewhere.”

Grant scrutinized her with an impressed smile.  “Louis Prima?  Really?”

“That’s what I heard.”  She flashed him a look of honest confusion.  “What?”

“I ain’t got nobody!” a voice sung out from behind them.

Maddy squeaked and throttled Grant’s arm.

Untangling himself, Grant spun to find a mound of rags on the steps of a crypt slowly materializing into a figure.  A bearded face emerged and blinked at them foggily.  “I ain’t moving, no how,” the man exclaimed, tipping over the empty bottle sitting next to him and sending it clattering down the stone steps of the crypt.

The sound rang like the chiming of a bell through the still morning air.

“How ‘bout a little help here?” he asked them blurrily.

Grant took Maddy by the elbow and guided her in the opposite direction.

“God Bless and the Devil curse,” the homeless man yelled at their backs, suddenly sobering up.  “Curse you, you selfish sinners!”

Just ahead the wide path narrowed to an intersection surrounded by towering stone monument-like crypts.  Mounted atop one, a six foot tall angel laid draped around a cross as if in mourning.  Another figure sat casually on the ledge beneath it, watching the passing couple with interest.

“Okay, I’m officially spooked now,” Maddy admitted in a hushed voice.

“You’re whispering again.”

“Yeah, well now I have a good reason.”

“I think you shoulda paid the gatekeeper,” a voice suggested in a conversational tone.

Maddy attacked Grant’s midsection, throwing herself behind Grant and putting him effectively between her and the skinny emaciated black man in a top hat that had separated from the shadows atop the crypt beside them like a man-sized crow.

“They ain’t open yet, y’know,” Top Hat informed them, dangling his legs off the ledge.

Grant gently nudged Maddy backwards, but unable (or unwilling) to grasp the hint, she continued to cling to his mid-section.

“We were just passing through,” Grant replied.

Jamming his two pinkie-fingers into his closed lips, Top Hat gave a single shrill whistle that reverberated through the tiny space.

Grant cocked his head back over his shoulder and hissed: “If you don’t let go of me right now, so help me!”

Maddy dropped her arms and took one step back.  Throwing her arms protectively around herself, she squeezed her eyes shut.

Grant gave her a look of concern.

A second man--this one tall, broad-shouldered and clothed in rags--stepped casually out into the path behind them.  “Morning, t’ ya’ll.”

Grant moved around the immobilized Maddy, putting himself halfway between the two men as Top Hat slipped carefully off the crypt ledge and onto the top step.

“You okay?” Grant asked her.

“Just checking the forecast,” she muttered in a low tone.

Top Hat closed in on them from the other side.  “They's selfish ones! They's desecrated this sacred spot.”

“I don't have a dollar to my name. Look.”  Grant took out his wallet and held it out at arm’s length.  “Does it look like rain?” he growled out of the corner of his mouth in Maddy’s direction.

Finally, she opened her eyes, her face pale.  She gave a single hopeless shake of her head and darted behind Grant again.

Top Hat snatched the wallet from Grant's hand like a starved wolf would take food.  “You done insulted the sanctity of this here hallowed ground,” he said, rifling through the billfold with a disgusted expression.  “Where’s ya’ll credit cards?”

“I had a bit of a money problem and had to cancel all those,” Grant responded. “You probably know how it is.”

Raggedy Man stopped a foot from Grant.  He scrutinized him from a slightly taller vantage point.  Grant met his stare and held it.

Top Hat spiked Grant's wallet to the cement in frustration.

Grant reached back and set the palm of his hand against Maddy’s belly, giving her a push firmly away from him.

Maddy held tight to his hand, unwilling to part from him.

Dropping his eyes, Raggedy Man turned to Maddy with a smirk.

“There was a time when I would have been scared of guys like you,” Maddy said, stepping out from behind Grant.

“You should be, dahlin,” Top Hat replied.  “We’re the ones you been havin’ nightmares ‘bout.  I’m comin’ for my pound of flesh.”

Dismissing Grant, Raggedy Man side-stepped him and gingerly took Maddy’s chin in his huge hand.

Grant glanced over at the taller man standing beside him and gave a sigh.  He was exhausted and he was hungry, but in that moment, instead of frustration taking control--tired of being dismissed and taken for granted--Grant found himself acting out of instinctual concern for another person.

Ragged Man looked down in surprise and found Maddy running her hand gently along his belly.  He looked up again into her eyes, a sensual smile spread slowly out across his lips.

Running on pure adrenaline, Grant grabbed the man’s wrist, twisted it behind him, and kicked the back of his knees, dropping him to the ground.

“If today is the day I am going to die, I swear by every soul in this cemetery, I will not go with my back to thugs like you,” Grant yelled, turning to Top Hat with fiery eyes and letting loose a cathartic yet blood-curdling scream.

Blinking as if awakening from a dream, Top Hat turned and bolted into the grass.

Suddenly as if by magic, there was a pearl-handled six-inch blade in Maddy’s hand, held across the throat of the man at her feet.

“I would take a hint and run before I hand the crazy white man your knife.”

Raggedy Man fell to his bottom and back-pedaled a few yards away before rising and running after Top Hat.

Maddy handed Grant the knife, which he promptly flung blade first into the grass where it stuck fast in the earth.  He seized Maddy’s hand and led her down the path after him in the opposite direction of the two would-be muggers.

Maddy looked over at him with an adrenaline-fueled smile.  The animal within her suddenly wanted very much to rip the clothes off this man and have her way with him in the center of this graveyard. 
Where the hell did that come from,
she asked herself, the out-of-character feeling both shocking and exhilarating her.

“That was quite a scream,” she said coyly, gripping his hand even tighter and in response, she could feel him increase his grip as well.

“Yeah,” he said breathlessly, a wide-eyed incredulous expression on his face.  “I don’t know what came over me.  I just saw him reach for you and I… and I…”

Words failed him and he glanced furtively over at her.

She pulled him to a stop and looked hopefully up at him.

He stared at her for a moment, recognized something in her expression, and looked away with a panicky expression.  Pulling her after him urgently, he started moving again.  “C’mon, let’s get the hell out of here before something else tragic happens.”

Maddy lowered red-tinged cheeks and trudged after him.