Dragons Luck (5 page)

The
shooter had been sitting in a window seat in Harry’s Corner for nearly two hours, quietly nursing one beer after another as he watched the street outside. In actuality, he was watching the gateway to the apartment complex that was kitty-corner to the corner bar.

He was from out of town, Biloxi specifically, but had visited New Orleans and the Quarter often enough to have a fair grasp of its layout. He was a little surprised, however, that he had been brought in for this job instead of whoever it was that hired him using local talent. Still, the money was good, and it looked like an easy, fast in-and-out job.

Suddenly, he came out of his reverie. The target was just emerging from the complex gateway. As the shooter watched, the target—just a kid, really—checked to be sure the gate had locked behind him, then set off down the sidewalk with a long-legged, rapid stride, passing right by the bar where the shooter was watching, but on the other side of the street.

Trying to keep his movements unhurried, the shooter gathered up the paper shopping bag from the floor next to his feet and left, leaving a half-full beer behind him. The bartender and the other customers barely registered his departure.

He held the distance he was following his prey at about half a block as the youth headed off across Jackson Square. Now that he was moving, the shooter’s normal patience fell into place. He would keep following the target until they reached a deserted stretch of street, then he would make his move. All he needed was a space where there were no pedestrians within twenty or thirty feet… and no cops, of course. At that distance, at night, witnesses were notoriously unreliable, if they decided to involve themselves at all. Within fifteen or twenty minutes, he could be back in his car and on his way to the expressway. Another half hour, and he would be out of the state.

He could follow all night, waiting for his opportunity, or, if it was necessary, make his move along this very stretch as the youth returned to his apartment. He hoped for a better setup, but this would do in a pinch.

He was pleasantly surprised when, after the target had crossed the Square, the youth turned left toward the river rather than turning right toward Bourbon Street and the profusion of bars and nightclubs. Maybe the kid was out to take a walk along the river. If so, the job could be over much quicker than he had anticipated.

Picking up his stride slightly to narrow the gap, the shooter hefted the bag he was carrying. Inside it was his favorite weapon, a double-barreled shotgun cut down until it was barely ten inches long overall. No way to check ballistics on a shotgun, and he rarely needed to use the second barrel.

The target crossed the street, heading for the river. The shooter hesitated for a moment, making a quick sweep visually to see if there were any police cars in the immediate area, then followed. As he started up the inclined driveway, he was suddenly aware of footsteps approaching him from behind. Before he could turn, he felt something hard being pressed against his side.

“Just keep walkin’, mister,” came a voice from behind him. “Hang a left up here into the parkin’ lot.”

The shooter was struck by the irony of the situation. Here he was about to do a job on someone, and it seemed he was getting mugged.

“This is far enough,” came the voice again. “Put the bag down, then step away from it and turn around. Keep your hands where we can see them.”

It seemed whoever he was dealing with was versed in police procedure. Probably from the other side. It also occurred to him that he was now in the exact situation he had been planning on catching his target in. A deserted stretch of space with no witnesses.

He followed the instructions and turned slowly. There were two of them, both young and male. Both black. One of them was openly holding a nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol.

“If this is about money,” the shooter said, calmly, “I can—”

“Shut up!” said the pistol holder. “Check the bag.”

His partner picked up the paper bag, hefted it, and looked inside.

“Shotgun,” he said. “Cut-down.”

“Uh-huh,” the pistol man said, not taking his eyes off the shooter. “You working alone or with a partner?”

“Alone,” the shooter said, then immediately wondered if he should have lied.

“Well,” said the pistol man, “it seems we have us a bit of a problem… or, at least, you do.”

“What’s going on here? Patches? Is that you?”

The target, no longer headed for the river, was walking up to the group.

“Oh… Hi, Mr. Griffen,” said the pistol man, suddenly looking a bit embarrassed.

“Hi yourself, Patches,” the target said mockingly. “Mind telling me what you’re doing here?”

“Well, I… we… we spotted this guy following you and thought we’d check him out,” the young gunman said. “He’s got a shotgun in that bag there.”

“I know he was following me,” the target said. “That’s why I was leading him up to the Moonwalk. The question is, what are
you
doing here? This isn’t your normal neighborhood.”

“Well… Okay. We were watching out for you.”

“Any particular reason?” the target pressed.

“We heard that someone had a contract out on you,” the gunman said. “My brother, TeeBo, said we should keep an eye on you and step in if anything went down.”

“He couldn’t just give me a call and warn me?”

“We weren’t sure if it was true or not,” the youth named Patches said. “Besides, this way, if we did you a favor, he thought maybe you’d think you owed us a favor sometime.”

The whole scene had a vaguely surreal feel for the shooter. Not only had he walked into some kind of a trap—or double trap—it seemed the others had all but forgotten about him as they continued their conversation.

“Well, you tell TeeBo that I appreciate the gesture, but I don’t think I want to owe him a favor over this.” The target was smiling. “Sometime, maybe. But not now and not over this. Put the gun away and give him back his bag.”

“If you say so, Mr. Griffen.”

The gunman’s pistol disappeared, and he nodded to his partner, who tossed the paper bag at the shooter’s feet.

“Um… mind if we stick around for this?” Patches said.

“We won’t do nothin’, but I’d kinda like to see this. I know TeeBo will want to hear about it.”

“Suit yourself.” The target shrugged. “But you’d better move a little farther away. If this guy uses a shotgun, he probably doesn’t shoot that straight.”

The two black youths eased a few steps to the side, and the target turned his attention to the shooter.

“Well?” he said. “Anytime you’re ready.”

The shooter stared at him for a moment, then, moving slowly, he bent over and took the shotgun out of the bag. Without going near the triggers, he broke the weapon open, removed the shells, and threw them away.

“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll pass on this one,” he said.

“All this is more than I bargained for, and I’ve got a bad feeling I’m way out of my league here. All I want now is to walk away from the whole thing.”

“That’s acceptable.” The target nodded. “Just go back and tell whoever hired you that if he sends anyone else, I won’t be as generous.”

He turned his back on the shooter.

“C’mon, Patches,” he said. “At least let me buy you two a drink.”

The shooter watched the three young men walk away and decided then and there that this had been his last job.

As
usual, the crowd was light in the late afternoon at the Irish pub. The bartender was idly browsing through the newspaper and didn’t even look up, much less wave, when the man who had been playing the video poker machine finished his beer and wandered out the side door.

In the seemingly random pecking order of the bar-centered social life in the Quarter, the video poker players, sometimes referred to as video crackheads, were pretty much the bottom of the food chain. They rarely if ever interacted with any of the regulars or even the bartenders, except to get another beer or to break a twenty from the latter. Instead, they would sit glued to their chosen machines for hours, staring at the screen as they sipped their drinks and pumped more money in as needed. In a bar that was heavy on conversation and pool, this put them well under the radar. One rarely noticed their coming or going, or even their presence while they were there.

This made the role ideal for the man who had just exited the pub. Unlike most, he worked at being unnoticed. In fact, the last time he had been in town, he made a point of hanging at this specific bar and establishing himself as one of those invisible video poker players. It was the perfect guise in which he could watch and listen yet not be seen. Even now, he doubted the bartender knew or remembered his name.

Of course, being a shape-shifter helped.

Reflecting on that, the man smiled to himself. For all their self-trumpeted powers of size changing and shape-shifting, the big bad dragons barely scratched the surface of the possibilities of those skills. Young McCandles might be excused because he was still new to the game, but the older, more experienced dragons didn’t have that alibi. Their prolonged ignorance was yet another example of dragon arrogance. If you had enough power, why bother learning finesse?

Sure, big flashy changes were impressive, like shifting your form into an animal, especially a mythical one. But the same skills could be used to perform smaller, less noticeable changes that were much more useful in one’s workaday life.

Changing one’s hair color or length or the color or shade of one’s complexion was easy, but effective. So was adding or subtracting twenty years to one’s age. Changing gender was a bit more challenging, especially since it usually meant changing one’s garments as well, but it could be done.

One of the man’s favorite changes was one he was using with his current disguise. Making one leg slightly longer than the other changed his walk and the whole way he moved and held his body. In this disguise, planted in front of a video poker machine, the man had been in the pub at the same time as young McCandles and not been recognized, even though the youth had every reason to remember him. Even the much-lauded dragon powers of observation were useless unless one chose to apply them.

The man’s thoughts were interrupted when his cell phone rang. Glancing at the caller ID, he winced. He had been expecting this call sooner or later, but still dreaded it.

Looking quickly up and down the street to be sure there was no one within hearing, he leaned against a wall in the shade and opened the phone.

“Talk to me,” he said in his traditional greeting.

“George!” came an agitated female voice. “Where the hell are you?”

“Hello to you, too, Debbie,” he said, making a face at his reflection in a window. “I’m fine, thank you. How about yourself?”

In actuality, his name wasn’t really George. Though he was known by that title to those who employed him, his closely guarded secret was that he was only one of a team. The entire team was referred to as “the George” because of its purpose… to hunt dragons for pay. As one of the team’s main field agents, however, he found that even the team was referring to him more and more as “George.” That was one of the annoyances of working with a team. He was about to have to deal with another one of those downsides.

“Cut the crap, George,” came the voice of his distant teammate. “We haven’t heard from you for over a week. What are you doing?”

“I’m taking a little self-prescribed vacation,” George said. “I figure with the bonuses we got from my last job, I could afford some time off.”

There was a pause at the other end of the conversation.

“I suppose that’s right,” Debbie said with grudging acceptance. “You could have called in and told us, at least.”

“Yeah, sure.” George laughed. “And get told there was a new hot assignment that was too good to pass on. No, thanks. I’ll do it my way. If that’s not acceptable, you can always fire me.”

“Very funny,” his teammate said. “Okay. You’re on vacation. Where are you, anyway?”

Now it was George’s turn to hesitate.

“George,” came the voice, stern now. “Please tell me you’re not back in New Orleans.”

George searched for an adequate answer, but none came to mind.

“Goddamn it, George!” his teammate exploded. “You can’t—”

“Listen, Debbie,” George interrupted. “I only…”

“No,
you
listen!” she shot back. “You know the rules.”

“I should,” he snarled. “I wrote most of them.”

“Then you also know why the rules are there in the first place,” Debbie said, coldly. “What we’re doing is dangerous without adding complications. These are dragons we’re playing with, for God’s sake. We only get so many passes at the table before the luck changes. That’s why we only work on assignment and for a healthy fee. That makes it business and keeps them from hunting for us on a personal basis. We can’t get involved emotionally!”

“I know, I know.” George sighed. “You’re right. It’s just…”

He hesitated again.

“Talk to me, George,” Debbie said, using his own catch-phrase, but her voice softened a bit. “What’s really going on there? Are you going soft on this McCandles kid?”

“I don’t know,” George said. “He may develop into a real pain in the butt, but right now he’s okay. Maybe it’s because he was raised not knowing about dragons and hasn’t settled into the role yet. Still, he’s dragon.”

“Okay. So what is it?”

“It’s Flynn,” George said, his thoughts suddenly coming into focus. “He really got under my skin the way he insisted on a face-to-face meeting. He’s everything I hate about dragons raised to a higher power. Now he’s down here trying to work a number on young McCandles using the information we dug up for him. I just want to keep an eye on things as an uninvolved observer.”

“Uninvolved observer. Right. Just be sure you keep it that way.” Debbie hesitated. “Want any of the team down there for backup?”

“No. I’ll handle this myself,” George said, glad for the offered support. “That way, if anything blows, it won’t splash on anyone else.”

“In theory, anyway,” his teammate said. “One thing you should be aware of, though. You may have some extra company. There’s a report here from one of our watchers that says Melinda’s daughter Lizzy is on her way down there if she isn’t there already.”

“Lizzy? That psycho?” George was genuinely startled. “What’s she coming down here for?”

“Unknown,” Debbie said. “As far was we can tell, her own family doesn’t know she’s headed for the Big Easy. Just watch your back, okay?”

George found himself looking up and down the street again as he signed off. Lizzy! This just kept getting better.