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“We’re not spies,” I said flatly. “None of us.”
For the first time her smile faltered. She turned back to Mary Alice. “Then what are you?”
“Assassins,” Natalie blurted out.
Akiko made a sound that started out as a laugh but got stuck halfway out and ended up a sort of gargle. “Are you shitting me?”
“No, dear,” Helen said. “We are most definitely not shitting you.”
It might have been Helen’s genteel voice forming the profanity that convinced Akiko. She squeezed Mary Alice’s hand. “Babe?”
“It’s true. We’re assassins. We were recruited in 1979. We work for a small international organization that is extra-governmental.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means our organization is outside of government,” Mary Alice began.
“I know what the word ‘extra-governmental’ means—don’t you dare patronize me,” Akiko said, dropping her hand. “I’m asking, what does itmean? Who do you kill?”
“Arms dealers, sex traffickers, the occasional dictator, cult leaders, corrupt judges. Basically not very nice people,” Mary Alice replied.
“The organization started out killing Nazis, if that helps,” Helen offered.
“But it’s been a while since we’ve found one,” Natalie added. “So, it’s mostly the folks Mary Alice just listed. Plus drug traffickers. And pirates—we’ve gotten really into pirates lately.”
“But youkillthem?” Akiko’s voice rose as she stood. “Excuse me if I need a minute to process this.” She closed the cat carrier and hefted it onto her hip. “Where’s my room?”
“I’ll show you,” Helen said quickly. She led Akiko away to the sound of shrieks from the cat carrier.
“Well, that went better than I expected,” Mary Alice said finally.
“Did it?” I asked.
“Oh yeah. If she were really mad, she’d have taken the cat and checked into the Marriott.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The day of the meet-up with Sweeney, I was up before dawn, but Mary Alice beat me to it. She was in the kitchen, frying up apple-stuffed French toast on the hot plate to go with the bacon she’d cooked in the microwave. She looked luminous, like the blood was humming just under her skin, and I knew what had her lit up inside—anticipation. Whichever way the meeting with Sweeney went, we were one step closer to being finished with this and getting back to our lives.
At least, that’s what I suspected she was thinking. Nobody was talking much at that point. Akiko—still giving Mary Alice the silent treatment—went to a secret vampire speakeasy on Bourbon Street with Minka while the rest of us were busy preparing for the meeting. Mary Alice fixed plates for Helen and Natalie and the four of us went over the plan again until it was time to dress. It was early—hours before we expectedSweeney—but the point was to be in place, making ourselves part of the atmosphere of Jackson Square.
We slipped out separately to take our positions. Helen had made reservations at Muriel’s, the restaurant that sat diagonally off the north corner of the square, insisting upon a balcony table in a prime location. She’d gone in person to secure the booking, slipping a fifty to the hostess with a sob story about it being her first wedding anniversary after her husband’s death. It was bullshit, of course, but it was good bullshit, just authentic enough for Helen to manage a few watery gulps as she told the story. The hostess promised to seat her there for a late lunch, which Helen intended to spin out with several slow courses and an off-the-menu soufflé for dessert.
From her perch at the small round table, she’d have a perfect view of the entire paved stretch in front of the cathedral. I’d provided her with a pistol, checking the sights myself. I hoped she wouldn’t need it, especially at that range, but there was no way to disguise a rifle. At the far end of the paved area, Mary Alice settled herself against the iron railing separating the green space of the square from the more commercial area. She had found a secondhand cello in a junk shop and had restrung and polished and tuned it until it sounded halfway decent. She’d have preferred a viola, but they were thin on the ground. She set an upturned silk top hat at her feet, displaying the shredded scarlet silk lining and dropping in a few coins to give passersby a hint.
On the same trip to the junk store, Natalie had scored several crappy canvases of depressing landscapes and even more depressing portraits. Nat had popped them out of the frames,overpainting a series of rough pictures that suggested New Orleans scenes without really committing themselves. They were exactly the sort of thing street artists hung all over the railings in Jackson Square, and Natalie finished off her disguise with a grey bobbed wig and a tie-dyed fanny pack, a hippy granny in touch with her creative side.
For my disguise, I bought a deck of tarot cards from Esoterica and spent two days shuffling to rough them up, then crayoned a posterboard sign with an evil eye to stick onto a card table. A couple of folding chairs and I was in business. I wore leggings and boots under my long, bright cotton peasant skirt—it was chilly with the wind blowing off the river—and a pair of cheap, gaudy earrings. I finished with a heavy application of kohl and a cascading wig of dark red curls tied with a scarf. Between the riot of hair and the eyeliner, I was unrecognizable.
I’d expected the crowds to be thin on a weekday so early in January, but the post-holiday tourists were still partying off their hangovers. I set up shop in front of the Presbytére, the narrow building separated from the cathedral by a tiny passageway called Père Antoine Alley. I could see Helen if I glanced up to my right and Mary Alice if I looked down to my left. Natalie was around the corner, watching pedestrians approaching from the river as she hawked her ugly paintings. We had debated using comms, but in the end decided to keep it simple, working out a series of signals we could each give that would alert the others to danger. Once an hour, just as the cathedral clock struck quarter past, we did a quick visual to check in, but everything was good.
I saw Sweeney before he saw me. Charles Ellison McSween. He looked like an old man, I thought sadly, watching him lope into the square, his shoulders hunched into his jacket against the cold. The river breeze ruffled the hair just below his baseball cap. The red was faded to the color of rust with a layer of frost on it. I let him walk past me before I called out to him, fortune-teller patter. He half turned back and I gestured theatrically to the empty seat across from me.
“Wouldn’t you like to know what the cards have to say about you?” I asked as he approached.
He gave me a narrow look. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered as he took the chair, testing it a little to see if it would take his weight.
“Shut up, I’m communicating with the other side,” I said, smiling as I shuffled.
