The Nightmare Game (4 page)

“Very well, then,” she looked up at me, with
forced politeness. “You will excuse me for making you wait as long as I did, I
needed to write some information down,” she pointed to her ledger, “while it
was still fresh in my mind. I’m not as young now as I once was and I didn’t
want to forget it.” Her words sounded false and too practiced, as if this was
an act that she’d used too many times before. She looked up at me with a smile
that sat alone on her face, her eyes were cold and hard. She opened a folder
that was lying on her desk and pulled out some papers. “So, you must be
Carolyne Shea,” she said, reading off a sheet of the paper she had just pulled
out of the file.

“No, I’m Ashley Adams, Carolyne’s friend,” I
corrected her.

“And where is Miss Shea? The reservation is in her
name.”

“She couldn’t make it.”

While Rochere looked at me even more severely than
before, there was a slight smile at one corner of her mouth that made her
expression almost vile.

“Oh, really? But the reservation is in her name.
There is no Ashley Adams listed on the reservation. I’m sorry, miss, but I can
only rent the property to parties that I have listed on the rental agreement.”
She was practically licking her lips in telling me this news.

Dammit!
I cursed
silently.
Why couldn’t I have just stayed in a hotel
?
My skin, now drenched in an icy sweat, was starting to feel waxy, I could feel
my hands shaking and I badly needed to lie down.

“What’s this then?” the young man, who was now
staring over Rochere’s shoulder, pointed to the paper.

Rochere, who did not see him walk up behind her,
jumped.

“Young man! Don’t ever walk up behind me like
that! You startled me!”

“Sorry,” he said, obviously not sorry.

“Oh, yes, now I see. Ashley Adams, you were to be
co-renters,” she seemed regretful that he had found her mistake. “I must have
overlooked your name. Sad to say that my eyes, along with my memory are not
what they once were.”

Yeah, right, I thought,
try that on some sucker who believes you.
“Can I have the key now?”
creaked out of my dry, tight throat. I was starting to lose my voice and I
needed a drink of water. I ran my fingers through my hair and it was nearly
soaked.

“Of course, just sign here,” she motioned, “and
here.”

Not trusting Rochere at all now, I tried to take a
minute to read the lease agreement but my head was starting to swim again and
my focus was poor. For all I knew, I could have been stupidly signing my life
savings over to her in the fine legalese print at the bottom of the page, but
to be honest, I was feeling so horrible that the only thing of which I made
certain was that I was not signing over my soul. Weak and shaky, I signed the
document.

“The key now.”

“You’ll need to leave a key deposit.”

I felt like slapping her. “Lady, you already have
my key deposit. You can check it. The whole damn trip is pre-paid and you have
a full security deposit. Just give me the key. Now.”

“Very well,” she said resentfully, opening a
drawer and pulling out a key ring with two keys on it. “Here we are. The larger
key opens the front gate. The smaller key is for the front door. Please keep
these doors locked always, and if you should decide to lose these keys, try not
to do so except during office hours, as you’ll have no way at other times to
receive a replacement. If you should lose them, it will come out of your
deposit.”

“Fine, no problem.” I answered edgily.

She handed me the key ring and continued, “We do
provide a maid service. We have a woman who comes in once a day in the
afternoon and tidies up except for Sundays. Sunday is her day off. The
apartment which you have rented and the courtyard are yours to enjoy; however,
do not attempt to stray into the rest of the house. It is locked with a
different set of keys and,” at this point her gaze pierced into me, “there will
be dire consequences should you ignore this and attempt in any way to gain
entrance.” She laughed a small, hollow, emotionless laugh. “Legal consequences,
of course.”

“Of course!” I said, straining to keep my
composure. I was feeling worse by the minute and I wasn’t taking kindly to her
threats. “What other kind is there? I mean, what are you going do? Send a
couple of thugs after me to break both my legs?”

I knew my feeble attempt at sarcasm had failed
when she looked at me with dead cold eyes and said, dryly and deliberately,
“Oh, my dear, you would be quite surprised at what I would be willing to do,”
and then smiled, a cold, heartless smile that made me realize once and for all
that the discomfort she had caused me had not only been deliberate, but that it
had given her an enormous amount of pleasure. The immediate, irrational hatred
I felt upon first meeting her was beginning to make sense now. “The security
deposit you and Miss Shea sent in will be refunded to you by mail to the
address you have on file with me after it is ascertained that you have done no
damage to the apartment.”

“I should think so,” I said in as nasty a tone of
voice as I could muster.

“Goodbye, Miss Adams.”

“Yeah,” I answered back, stuffing my copy of the
rental agreement into my purse and rising, with some difficulty, out of my
chair. More than ever I regretted that I wasn’t staying in a hotel. I made up
my mind then that, after resting a bit, I would call around and see if I could
get a room elsewhere on such short notice.

My hero took my carry-on satchel and suitcase and
we walked out of the building together. Once we got out onto the street and
into the fresh air, I began to feel a little better, realizing how lucky I was
that he’d inadvertently intervened to save me.

“It’s this way,” he motioned to our left. “And
then in a few streets we turn up there on Toulouse. It’s not too far.”

“Thanks for taking my bags,” I said. “I really
wasn’t up to carrying them.”

“That’s fine, ma’am, don’t worry about it. My
momma raised me to be a gentleman.”

“It looks like she did a great job. You have no
idea how grateful I am that you came in when you did and that you stayed,” I
told him. “Something – and now to think about it must have been something in
that office – was making me really sick before you walked in. I just had to get
out of there. And that nasty woman was making me wait way too long.”

“Yeah,” he said, agreeing whole heartedly, “She
sure is a piece of work, that one. You feelin’ better now?”

“A little. I hope I didn’t catch a bug on the
flight. That would ruin my trip.”

“Nah, I think you were right the first time,
probably just somethin’ in that office that got to you. Maybe that ol’ witch
put a hex on you or gave you the evil eye or somethin’.” He squinted one eye
and made the other as large as he could, squishing the rest of his face over to
one side. I realized then how cute he was with his tousled sandy hair and
sparkling blue eyes, making me wish for the first time in a long time that I
was still twenty.

I couldn’t help laughing at the face he made.
“Charming woman, wasn’t she? I wouldn’t put it past her!”

“Yeah, she probably put a hex on me, too!” he
laughed. “But really, I bet if you take a rest, you’ll be all ready to party
tonight. Like sleepin’ off a hangover.”

“Maybe,” I said, unconvinced.

We walked a few blocks and he pointed, “Here’s
where we turn. This is Toulouse Street.”

We continued walking down a few more blocks. Even
though the air had done me good, the short walk had tired me out far more than
it should have and I was looking forward to flopping down on a nice,
comfortable bed. I really needed that nap after this afternoon’s mishap.

“I think this is it,” I said, eyeing an old red
brick wall with a solid black iron privacy gate, both about ten feet high, that
guarded a townhouse. “This looks like the picture in the ad. Yep, the street
number’s right.” Turning to him as I stopped before the gate, I said, shaking
his hand, “Thanks again for the help. By the way, my name’s…”

“Ashley,” he finished my sentence. “Yeah, I
remember from the office. I’m Troy, Troy Broussard.”

Pulling out the keys, I said, “I hope you still
get a chance to run into Gilda while you’re here.”

“Well, if not, I’ll look her up if I’m ever back
in town again. Listen, I gotta run, but I’m gonna be out partyin’ tonight, so maybe
I’ll see you in a club later.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think so. I’m still feeling a
little rotten. I’ll probably just get something to eat around here later and
turn in early.”

“Naw, that’s no way to do it! Like I said, sleep
it off. I bet you’ll be ready to hit Bourbon Street later on tonight.”

“I hope so. And thanks again for your help. You
have no idea how grateful I am to you for rescuing me from that horrible
woman.”

“I’m glad I could be there, ma’am. And don’t
mention it. I just spent about ten minutes with that old harpy and I couldn’t
wait to get outta there. Hey, listen, I’ve got an appointment in about five
minutes that I’ve gotta get to, but before I get going, why don’t we make sure
that gate key of yours works. I still don’t trust that old witch.”

“I’d appreciate it,” I told him, inserting the
larger key into the gate’s lock and turning it.

Troy placed my bags beside the gate and said,
“Hey, it works! Is there anything else I can help you with while I’m here?”

“No, that’s okay. If this key works, I’m sure the
other one must, too. I don’t want to make you late for your appointment and
besides, you’ve already gone far above and beyond the call of duty. It was very
nice to meet you, Troy, and if I do make it out later, I hope I run into you.”

“I’ll be out there. If I see you, I’ll buy you a
drink. And it was good to meet you, too, Ashley. Bye, now.”

“Bye.”
What a great guy
,
I thought as I watched him turn and half walk, half bounce off.

After all of the turbulence, I was now finally
here, ready to start my vacation in earnest. Alone, I walked through the gate
with suspicion, wondering what kind of a deal this would turn out to be.
Gripping my bags, which felt a lot heavier than they had before I’d entered
Rochere’s office, I walked though the high, large gate, wondering what lay
inside. For my first really good surprise of the day, the courtyard on the
other side transformed my apprehensions into delight.

I found myself standing before a house and
courtyard that embodied the essence, strange beauty and sheer romance of the
French Quarter. Putting down my bags, I closed and locked the heavy gate behind
me. It had been far too many years, I thought, since my last trip to the
Crescent City and I pledged to myself now that I would never again go so long without
a return visit. As I stood motionless, soaking in my surroundings, my heart
sang out,
I’m finally home now
; I consciously
had to remind myself that this was just a vacation and that I was here for less
than a week. In front of me and to my right, a small garden containing a
fountain was lush with banana plants, elephant ears, palm trees and bamboo,
alive with the colors of blooming irises, dahlias, crocuses and gladioli.
Flowering Azaleas and split leaf Philodendrons thrived in clusters in huge red
clay pots on the red brick courtyard floor and ivy covered the blank brick wall
of the rear of the house next door. The somewhat tattered three-story
antebellum town home of French design displayed on the web site that Carolyne
and I had investigated just before we rented the apartment had been replaced by
an immaculately maintained structure. Apparently, the owner had done massive
renovation job on the house and the courtyard since the fish-eye photo used on
the internet had been taken. This was all so much nicer than anything I
expected. I could only assume that the building received enough flooding during
Katrina that it needed to be restored and that the courtyard was probably
thrown in for good measure.

To my left began the main portion of the L-shaped
house, ushered in by a curving staircase that led into the balcony of the its
second story, which actually seemed to be the main floor of the home proper.
White lace-work wrought-iron railings set off the freshly painted dusty pink
walls of the house like confectioner’s icing. The main entrance to this floor
was a set of large French doors that, along with the flanking door-height
windows, were framed on each side by white slatted shutters and topped with
fanlight windows. The third floor, which had a white wood balcony railing, was
largely covered by a sloping garret with small, narrow windows set out from the
roof. The first floor apartment, where I was to be staying, had a porch light
lit even though it was afternoon, probably to point my way. This floor, which
may have originally been a sort of floor-level basement, was set slightly back
underneath the balcony. Unadorned and straight-forward, this section that
contained the apartment area, with its sliding glass door that opened into the
courtyard, looked as if it had been cheaply remodeled into an apartment more
than a few decades ago with no thought to keeping with the style of the
building, for it really did not fit with the rest of the house at all. I
wondered why anyone would do such a nice job of reconstructing the rest of the
building without touching this floor, especially considering that, if flooding
had been the motivating factor, the floor level would have needed it the most.
Past the apartment section, the house came to a right angle and ran directly
opposite the gate at which I was standing until it came to an abrupt end. At
that point the house was adjoined to a plain, short building, most likely the
slave quarters originally, by ramps joining it to the main house. An archway
barely revealed a portion of these ramps and the plain wooden staircase leading
to the second and third floors; the rest was hidden in shadows.