In the Blood (6 page)

"You
keep fretting about stuff that ain't real, you 're gonna end up just like Uncle

Willy! He was always worrying about the things he saw in his dreams. Where'd it get

him ? In the State Hospital, that's where! You 're gonna end up sharing a cell with

him if you don't lay off this shit!"

Palmer smiled wryly as he reached for the bourbon.
Better shove over, Uncle Willy.

Look's like you 're going to have company.

Palmer let the crowd push him along Bourbon Street. It was slow going and
intensely claustrophobic, but in spite of the overcrowding, the noise and the reek of
curbside garbage, he was enjoying himself.

It was Mardi Gras, and he'd spent the day wandering the narrow streets of the
French Quarter, marveling at the costumes and sampling the various local alcoholic
beverages. Carnival revelers on the balconies overhead tossed beads and other
trinkets at the crowd below. Occasionally a drunken tourist would bare a tit or a
backside, causing a shower of hurled plastic beads and a firestorm of camera flashes.

The whole thing was silly, trivial, bawdy and dumb. Palmer thought it was great.

He broke free of the press of bodies at the next intersection and headed toward
Jackson Square to watch the costumers promenade past the Saint Louis Basilica. He
was amused by a band of masquers dressed as frogs heckling the extremist
fundamentalists, who were protesting the merrymaking by handing out their own
bogus religious tracts. Palmer was so impressed he offered to pay for some of their
literature.

"Don't bother." The young man grinned from inside the gaping cloth mouth of a
frog's head. "We just do it to piss these jerks off. In fact, more people offer us
money than them, and that really gets their goat! They've been out here for the last
few years, being a major pain in the butt. There's not nearly as many of them this
time, though. I guess their funding got the triple whammy, what with the PTL

scandal, old Jimmy gettin' caught out on Airline Highway, and that weird
Catherine Wheele cult-massacre last year. Thanks anyway, mister! Happy Mardi

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Gras! Remember: Frog Croaked For Your Sins!" The frog priest laughed, hopping
after his departing flock.

"You weren't offering that man money, were you, sir?" Palmer looked down at the
florid-faced woman in the
Christ Is the
Answer
Crusade
T-shirt. Her eyes were so
magnified by her coke-bottle glasses they seemed to hover in front of her face. "They
do the Devil's work, mocking the Lord's word and deed! They shall burn in hell on
Judgment Day! Jesus loves you, even if you are a sinner! If you confess your sin
now, and kneel with me and pray for deliverance of your soul, it may not be too late
for you . . "

Palmer shook his head, too overwhelmed by the woman's conviction and madness to
say anything. It wasn't until he'd disentangled himself that he realized she'd slipped
a tract into his pocket. The title dripped red ink like slime and read: Are You
Ready

for the End Times?

Judging from the crude illustration beneath the question, no one was: terrified

"sinners" in tattered rags ran from flying insects the size of dachshunds; haggard
derelicts tried to slake their thirst at drinking fountains gushing blood; a busty
MTV-style Whore of Babylon lolled on the back of a seven-headed Beast, while in
the background a nine-hundred-foot-tall Jesus beamed beatifically at the hundreds
of souls zipping skyward from a tangle of wrecked and abandoned cars on the
interchange.

Disgusted, Palmer hurled the offending tract to the ground and hurried away in
search of beer.

He passed the next few hours drinking concoctions with so much grenadine in them
the back of his throat puckered. Darkness came, and, as if upon clandestine
agreement, the families vanished from the area, leaving only the hardcore to bid
farewell to the flesh.

A shrill, almost hysterical, sense of abandon tinged the masquers' celebrations.

Drunken horseplay turned into open brawls. Palmer couldn't tell the difference
between screams and laughter. The eyes of the revelers gleamed from behind their
borrowed faces, as if compelled to cram as much as possible into the few hours
remaining to them before returning to their real lives.

The
need
Palmer glimpsed in their bleary, unfocused stares was both repellent and
fascinating. It was as if he were surrounded by thousands of empty people
desperately trying to fill themselves. He was overwhelmed by an image of himself
being attacked by the screaming, laughing, empty people, devouring his soul as
easily as a lion cleans the marrow from a broken bone.

Gasping, he pushed past a group of masquers dressed as cockroaches and stumbled
inside one of the all-hours tourist traps that lined the street. He leaned against a
postcard rack and shivered like a drunk with the DTs. There was still an hour to go
before he could consider his job done. He decided to lay off the booze so he would be
in the condition to talk with the elusive Ms. Blue. Or if he meant to steer clear of the
nuthouse, for that matter.

He could still remember the day the men in the white suits took Uncle Willy away,
screaming at the top of his lungs about the worms crawling out of his skin. Palmer's
father had been quite upset. People on TV didn't have members of their family

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carted away. At least not on Leave
It to Beaver
and
Father Knows Best.
It happened
on the soaps his mom liked to watch all the time, though.

"You awright, mister?"

Palmer jerked his head up and stared at the man behind the cash register. The
shopkeeper was the overall shape and size of a small foothill, dressed in khaki pants
and a
I Saw the Pope
T-shirt. He chewed on an unlit cigar, eyeing Palmer warily.

"You ain't gonna be sick, are ya? If yer gonna puke, do it outside, fer th' love 'a
Gawd! I awready cleaned up after three people awready t'night! Jesus!"

"I'm okay, thanks. It was a just a little... crowded out there."

"Yeah, ain't that the truth! I'll be glad when ever'body goes home so's I can get
some sleep. I-Hey, is that some friend of yours?" He pointed at the busy street on
the other side of the glass.

Palmer spun around, the hairs on the back of his neck erect. A well-fed tourist
couple stood and stared at a "lifelike" plastic turd stapled to the brim of a synthetic
baseball cap that bore the legend
Shithead.

"You mean
them?"

"No, it was some guy in a suit. You know, dressed like them queers down at the art
galleries. He was smokin' a cigarette and wavin' at ya, like he was tryin' t'getcher
attention."

"It must have been a case of mistaken identity. I don't know anybody in town.

The shopkeeper grunted and returned to thumbing through his porno magazine.

"Tourists is tourists."

Palmer stared out into the street. He hadn't lied. He
didn't
know anybody in New
Orleans. So why did he feel as if someone had just walked over his grave?

The Devil's Playground was a block off the historic French Market, and the odor of
discarded produce was strong on the night wind, mixing with the ever-present reek
of beer and urine that seemed to hang over the district during Carnival.

Painted flames covered the bar's windows. A fiberglass statue of a grinning
Mephistopheles, resplendent in his skintight red jumpsuit and neat goatee, stood
next to the door. The grinning devil held aloft a pitchfork in his right hand, his left
fist firmly planted on one hip. The Prince of Lies' jaunty demeanor was far more
reminiscent of Errol Flynn as Robin Hood than Goethe's demon.

Palmer pushed his way inside, ignoring the looks from a couple of young men
sheathed in black leather and chrome chains lounging near the door. The place was
packed, the buzz of a hundred voices lost under the crash and thunder of amplified
rock music. He scanned the cramped quarters for a sign of his quarry. He made a
try for the bar, brushing against a tall, heavyset woman.

The woman turned, smiling good-naturedly if drunkenly. Her face was heavily made
up, chunky costume jewelry dripping from her fingers and ears.

"Hey there, handsome. You look lonesome." Her voice was husky, her breath
redolent of whiskey. She reached up with one beringed hand and patted her hair.

"Oh, I'm looking for someone, actually."

The woman's smile grew wider. "Aren't we all, sugar?" She leaned closer and
Palmer glimpsed a hint of five o'clock shadow under the makeup. She placed a

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large, knobby-knuckled hand on his sleeve. "Maybe I can help you find what you're
looking for."

Palmer shrugged. "You might. I'm supposed to be meeting someone here. A
woman."

The transvestite removed her hand from his arm. "I see." Interest drained from her
voice as she returned her gaze to the mirror behind the bar, readjusting her wig.

"Maybe you know her. She lives somewhere around here. Her name's Sonja Blue."

The transvestite jerked her head in his direction so hard she unseated her wig.

Palmer glimpsed thinning hair the color of wheat straw.

"The Blue Woman? You're meeting the Blue Woman? Here?!" All pretense of
imitating a woman's voice ended. The transvestite stared at Palmer as if he'd just
announced he had an armed nuclear device strapped to his back.

Palmer was suddenly aware that everyone else in the bar was staring at him. The
music continued to thump and growl like a caged animal, but no one spoke. Palmer
felt his armpits dampen.

"Get out! Get out of here! We've got enough trouble as it is without you bringing

her
here!" The bartender, a muscular fellow naked except for a leather jockstrap, a
ram's horn headdress and a tattoo of a dragon rampant on his chest, gestured
angrily at the door.

"But-"

A dozen pairs of hands grabbed him, lifting him bodily over their heads. Palmer
recalled how he used to stage dive at the hard-core concerts, leaping onto the stage
for a brief moment of stolen glamour before jumping back into the seething dance
floor. He didn't try to fight them and allowed himself to be roughly passed over the
heads of the bar's patrons and dumped, unceremoniously, back onto the street. He
straightened his rumpled clothes as best he could, glancing back at the doorway.

The two young men dressed in leather and chrome blocked the entrance.

"Fuck this shit." Palmer was in no position to take on two guys ten years his junior.

Not if he wanted to keep what was left of his teeth. He shoved his hands in his
pockets and stalked off around the corner.

He paused halfway down the block, lighting a cigarette with trembling hands.

"Palmer?"

He spun around so fast he burned himself with his lighter.

She was dressed in a pair of faded, much-worn blue jeans, a
Cramps 1990 Tour
T-shirt, a ragged leather jacket a size too big for her, scuffed engineer boots and
sunglasses. Even though he could not see her eyes, Palmer was aware of being
watched.

"Sonja?"

"You are Pangloss's agent?"

He shrugged. "You could say that."

"Were you followed?"

"No.

Her lips twisted into something like a smile. "You seem sure of yourself."

"I'm good at what I do."

"No doubt. You spoke of a letter from my... grandfather."

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Palmer reached into his jacket and withdrew the letter. "Funny, the Doc doesn't
look old enough to have a granddaughter your age."

"He's very well preserved. It's a family trait. I'll take that letter now, if you don't
mind." She extended a pale, narrow hand toward him.

Palmer handed over the sealed envelope, his fingers accidentally brushing against
hers.

There was a sound like a flashcube going off in the back of his skull. His fingertips
tingled. He saw Sonja Blue jerk her head as if she'd received a sudden electrical
shock. The street disappeared and Palmer found himself in a strange room.

He saw a pool table surrounded by splintered pool cues, scattered cue balls... and

broken boys. The smell of blood and fear was strong. The fear smell's primal intensity

was erotic, the greatest aphrodisiac he'd ever known, and most of it radiated from the