House of the Rising Sun (Hackberry Holland 4)

“I’m not disturbed. The man who did it is going to be disturbed.”

“Sooner or later, Andre and I will find him.”

“Andre is the zombie?”

“You shouldn’t talk about him like that.”

“What’s his formal title? Voodoo priest who kills people?”

“Would you like a glass of wine?”

“No, have supper with me.”

When he told Mealy he had already eaten, he had told the truth. He had not gone to the woman’s apartment intending to ask her out. The words came out of his mouth before he could think. How could he discuss in a public place what they needed to discuss? What was actually on his mind? He didn’t want to answer the question.

“Did the mask look made of rubber? Rubber with a reddish tint?”

“Come to think of it.”

“I don’t believe you were looking at a mask, Miss Beatrice. Do you recognize the name Jimmy Belloc?”

“No.”

“How about Jimmy No Lines?”

Her eyes were moving back and forth. The rain had turned to sleet and was hitting as hard as rock salt, sliding in serpentine lines down the fronds outside the windows. “Jimmy No Lines lived in the French Quarter. I think he did errands for Mealy Lonetree.” She paused. “Did I say something wrong?”

“I was just wondering if there was such a thing as an honest man in the city of New Orleans.”

“Many people ask that.”

“Arnold Beckman is behind this, isn’t he?”

“Of course.”

She clicked on a lamp. The shade was hung with gold tassels and painted with multicolored flowers that glowed like moths. She sat down on the divan and pulled the crystal stopper from a decanter of sherry. She filled one glass, then started to fill another.

“No, thank you, ma’am, I’m not good at taking one drink.” He sat on the other end of the divan, his hat on his knee, his legs too long to put in a comfortable place. “I don’t want to take up a lot of your time, Miss Beatrice. I’d like to be done with my own troubles, but I don’t know as I ever will. This stuff about a cup Jesus might have drank from is a little more than I can handle. The cup doesn’t have anything to do with my life, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let the likes of Beckman get his hands on it.”

“He believes the only artifact that has more power is the Spear of Longinus. According to the legend, it was the one used by the Roman soldier to lance the side of Jesus.”

“That sounds like a story out of the Middle Ages. I don’t know as it’ll quite get through the wash.”

“I had the impression you were a believer.”

“The question is, a believer in what?”

“Give the cup to a church. Beckman will leave you alone.”

“A Mexican padre in sandals and sackcloth is going to protect it?”

“Send it to Rome.”

“I didn’t see the Vatican’s name on it.”

“You’re living in the wrong century, Mr. Holland. When you thought General Lupa was going to put you to death, you told him you had locked John Wesley Hardin in jail. You said you wanted that information on your grave marker. You showed a level of acceptance that probably unnerved him. The American West is gone. Beckman won’t meet you in the street with pistols.”

“He doesn’t have anything I want. If he kills me, he still won’t get the cup. I should have been embalmed a long time ago, anyway. About dinner, Miss B.—I didn’t mean to impose myself.”