Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3 (70 page)

S
tasi hurried out through the front of the hotel, holding her handkerchief to her eye as if she'd been crying. The bell captain looked concerned. "Are you all right, ma'am?"

"Oh yes," Stasi said with a sob in her voice. "I need a taxi. Please, will you call one?"

"Of course, ma'am," he said, his face creasing in a concerned frown. "Are you sure…?"

"Just the taxi," Stasi said, dabbing at her eye. She was certain he could see she'd been punched, and if she were running away from a man… "As quickly as possible."

He snapped his fingers, calling one from down the block. "Here you go," he said, opening the door. "I won't tell anyone where you've gone."

"Thank you," Stasi said, sliding in quickly. "Corner of Chartres and Esplanade, please." She hoped she was lucky tonight. She hoped he was still there.

"O
k," Alma said. "Lewis, go down to the desk and see if you can get a street map. Surely they have some. Jerry, we need something of Mitch's, preferably with a material correspondence. A comb or a brush with hair in it would be perfect."

Jerry nodded. "There's one in his shaving kit. I'll get it."

"We're going to dowse for Mitch?" Lewis asked.

Alma nodded. "We don't have anything on the necklace, but we should be able to find Mitch. That's the best idea I've got, unless somebody knows where he might go in New Orleans?"

Jerry shook his head. "Not me. I've never heard him say a word about it."

"Then let's do this," Lewis said. "I'll go get a tourist map."

T
he cab pulled up on Chartres Street, hugging the curb in the narrow way, and Stasi hopped out, paying the driver and craning her neck at the same time. It was nine o'clock, and the restaurants along the street were busy. Was he there? Oh yes. There he was, a familiar pudgy figure in a Panama hat pacing up and down the street in front of a restaurant while living people walked straight through him.

Stasi stood up, shaking her gray silk dress out in folds around her, waiting for the taxi to move before she stalked across the street. "You!" she shouted silently, mental voice ringing like her heels on the cobbles. "I need to talk to you!"

The dead man spun around as if he'd seen a Fury. "Ma'am?"

"I need to talk to you," Stasi said, gaining the curb on his side of the street. She glanced in through the lighted windows of the restaurant. "And why are you still here anyway? Didn't your brother get the message I left for him?"

"He did." The dead man took his hat off and twisted it around nervously in his hands. "But he didn't believe it, you see. He thought somebody was playing a joke. So I'm trying to get somebody else to do it. It's not that I don't appreciate you writing it out, Miss." He looked at her curiously. "But why are you looking for me? I'm just a dead man."

"I need your help," Stasi said. "I need the help of the dead of New Orleans. And I'm willing to pay for your trouble."

"Pay?"

"I'm looking for a man who's under a terrible curse. The sooner I find him the more likely I can keep something awful from happening. The Dead who helps me and finds him will be fairly paid. I'll be their medium, any message they want to any person they want, delivered in person with full voice possession." Stasi lifted her chin. "Find this man for me, and I'll let you talk to your brother Milward yourself. And you can use my body to do it."

The dead man's eyes lit. "Truly?"

"I give you my sacred word on it," Stasi said. "And if more than one person helps find him, I'll give each their fair turn. The Dead can find anything faster than a living person and can go anywhere."

He put out a hand. "It's a deal." She looked at it and he stuffed his hand in his pocket embarrassedly. "Sorry. I forgot I can't."

"That's all right," Stasi said. "This is the man."

She made the mental picture as vivid as she could. A big man, 6'1" or 6'2", broad shouldered but not heavy. Brown hair, blue eyes, a face that must have been truly handsome before middle age started creeping up on it. Wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, a sag to his jawline… Still handsome, really. He had a mischievous expression, at least he did when he looked at her, like they were sharing some joke rather than that the joke was on him. And she liked his voice, a slow drawl associated with nitwits and hillbillies, but there were no fleas on Mitch. He was sharp as a tack under that lazy expression. He'd have to be, wouldn't he? You didn't get to be an ace in the air by being slow.

The dead man's voice was sympathetic. "Your sweetheart?"

Stasi opened and shut her mouth again like a fish. "I hardly know him," she said.

"Oh." The dead man frowned. "Lots of trouble for someone you hardly know."

"It's about a curse," Stasi said. "That's the important thing. I need to find him before something bad happens."

"We'll do our best," the dead man said. "Lots of the Dead'll want to take you up on your offer."

"Just find him," Stasi said.

M
idnight, and another bar, this one at the corner of Iberville and Burgundy, on the edges of Storyville. Twelve years ago this had still been the red light district, regardless of all efforts of social reformers to stamp out the brothels that had made this the most famous den of iniquity in the western hemisphere. Despite official closures, there had still been plenty of places to play for a guy who was so inclined.

Mitch took a long drink from the glass in his hands, Cuban rum straight up. You can buy anything in Storyville, the saying went, even after they'd stopped publishing the notorious Blue Books, guides to the brothels and the specialties of the house. Almost anything. There are things no money can buy.

He'd have one more drink. Why not?

H
enry hovered in the lobby of the Hotel Denechaud. The sponsors’ party had started almost an hour ago, and everyone was there except the Gilchrist team. The delegation from TexAv was starting to ask questions, and he could hardly blame them for being annoyed. This was supposed to be the chance for the people who’d put up the money for the race — for the fuel, for the hangar space, for the fancy hotel rooms and the restaurant meals, none of it exactly cheap — to hobnob with the flyers, to bask in a little reflected glory and get their names and businesses in the papers. And Alma wasn’t here.

It wasn’t as though she didn’t understand what was at stake — she’d proved that she was almost as good at the publicity as she was at flying. Which meant something was wrong.

He shook his head. There couldn’t be anything wrong. They couldn’t have gotten into anything like serious trouble in the six hours between landing and the party. Not even in New Orleans. Maybe Alma was sick? Mabel said she always got her monthly visitor at the most inconvenient time imaginable…

There was movement in the doorway of the ballroom, one of the TexAv bigwigs checking the lobby, and instinctively Henry stepped into the shelter of a pillar. There was a house phone in one corner, and he crossed to it, lifting the receiver to summon the hotel operator.

“Mrs. Segura’s room, please.”

“One moment.”

The phone rang, and rang again. Henry waited. He probably should have asked for the room under Lewis’s name, it wasn’t fair to fuel the gossip — and all the gossip in the world wasn’t going to matter if they didn’t show up soon. Ten rings, twelve…

“I’m sorry, sir,” the operator said. “There’s no answer.”

“Try Dr. Ballard’s room,” Henry said. “Please.” He should have started there, he thought. Jerry at least was unlikely to be out running around the city at this time of night.

“One moment.”

The telephone rang ten times. Henry hung up before the operator could interrupt again. Not in their rooms, and not at the party. Maybe something had gone wrong with the Terrier? That jarred him into motion, sending him toward the telephone cubicles in the alcove farthest from the front desk.

“Number, please.”

“New Orleans Airport, the office there. I don’t have the number.”

“Fifteen cents, please.”

Henry fished in his pocket, came up with three nickels and fed them into the telephone.

“Thank you. One moment.”

There was a long silence, and then a telephone began to ring. He counted five rings, six, and finally a breathless voice said, “New Orleans Airport.”

Thank God there was still someone in the hangar. Henry said, “I’m trying to reach the Gilchrist Aviation team. I heard they were there —”

The man interrupted him before he could finish. “Mister, there ain’t nobody from any of the teams here. There’s just me and Hank and the dogs and the shotgun. That good enough for you?”

“Yeah,” Henry said, and hung up. What the hell had gone wrong?

A
lma pushed her hair back from her eyes, swinging her wedding ring over the tourist map that Lewis and Jerry tried to hold steady in the alley behind a closed shop. Fortunately, a little light came from the streetlight on the corner so that it was at least possible to read the map. Concentrate. Concentrate.

"He's moved west now," Jerry said, squinting at the map. "Jesus Christ, Mitch! Can't you stay in the same place for twenty minutes?"

"Basin Street?" Lewis shook the map, and Alma lost the trace.

She folded the ring into her hand and slipped it back on her finger, the piece of string balled in her palm. "How far is it?"

"Thirty blocks," Jerry said grimly.

"Oh, Jerry." There was no way to keep this up. Jerry couldn't hike around like this, and cabs were getting few and far between after midnight. Alma thought this through. "Ok, you go back to the hotel and get a hold of Henry. He's probably having a fit by now. Tell him what's up. Lewis and I will go to Storyville."

She thought for a second that Jerry would protest, but instead he broke out laughing. "There's a story for the newspapers! Aviatrix photographed in house of prostitution!"

"Is that what it is?" Lewis boggled.

"Storyville is the red light district," Jerry said.

"It used to be," Alma said. "Supposedly they cleaned it up after the war."

"Not so much," Jerry said.

"Why would Mitch…?" Lewis stopped, his ears flaming.

"Ours is not to wonder why. Ours is but to do or die," Jerry intoned.

Alma swatted him with the map. "Is this silly season? Can we keep our minds on what we're doing?"

"At least you're only taking one man to Storyville," Jerry said with a bitter laugh. "Instead of your usual harem."

"I don't think…" Lewis began.

"Jerry, go find Henry. Lewis, let's get moving." Alma folded the map and shoved it in her pocket. Thirty blocks was a long way.

"Y
ou didn't tell me it was about this." The woman put her hands on her hips, a pretty Italian woman just past thirty in a white negligee. For the moment her negligee was clean, though Stasi imagined that it often appeared soaked with blood.

"About what?" she asked. She was sitting in a wrought iron chair in front of a café long closed, no doubt a pleasant place to watch people in Jackson Square at a time other than one in the morning.

"About the Axeman." The dead woman put her hands on her hips. "You told Morton it was about finding some man. You never said anything about the Axeman."

"I don't…"

"Come on. New Orleans' own Jack the Ripper. It was only twelve years ago. It was in all the papers."

"I wasn't in the United States twelve years ago," Stasi said. "I'm sorry. I've never heard a word about it."

"He killed eleven people and then disappeared," the dead woman said. "Just vanished. Nothing supernatural, of course. He left town."

Stasi felt a cold chill run up her back which had nothing to do with talking to the Dead. "What does that have to do with the man I asked you to find?"

"Nothing. And everything." The woman shrugged. "You didn't say anything about the Lanier necklace either."

"I said there was a curse."

"The Lanier necklace is cursed, all right," the dead woman said. "We all know that." She looked at Stasi keenly. "You didn't put it on, did you?"

"No," Stasi said.

"Good, because if you did you'd be joining us soon. Just like the rest of them." She gave Stasi a hungry smile. "It's always nice to make new friends."

"Where is he?" Stasi asked. "Tell me or don't, but if you want the reward you'll tell me where the man is with no more crosstalk about it."

"On Canal Street walking down toward the levee," she said. "Just about Decatur."

"The levee." Stasi jumped up. "That big thing that keeps the river back. You can't get up it, can you?"

"You can at the Canal Street ferry terminal," the dead woman said cheerfully. "There's the Algiers Ferry. No ferry running at this time of night, of course."

"How far is it?" The river was right in front of her, on the other side of the square and the street and the levee, of course. If she just turned right and followed the levees…

"Far enough."

"Thank you for your help. How far is it?" Stasi snapped.

"Six blocks." The dead woman flowed along behind her. "But you won't make it in time. He'll be fished out tomorrow with the Lanier necklace in his pocket." She smiled happily. "I imagine it will be in all the papers."

"Do me a favor and go see where he is now," Stasi said.

The woman shrugged. "Aren't you paying up?"

"Tomorrow," Stasi said.

"You didn't say tomorrow."

Stasi stopped, hands on hips. "I didn't say now either. I didn't specify, and Morton didn't ask. So I suggest you wait patiently until tomorrow. I know how bargains with the Dead work, and I didn't promise a time."

"I've done my bit. I'm not doing any extra," the dead woman said. "And I'll see you tomorrow, Miss Medium."

"Fine," Stasi said as she vanished into not so thin air. Six blocks. And damn these shoes!