Dragons Deal (18 page)

Griffen reached the apron and felt as if he had been hit in the head by a hot, wet fish. The power that the old building exuded made him believe in science-fiction force fields. Passersby, mostly locals, walked around him on the sidewalk, meeting his eyes with a friendly expression of puzzlement but never looking at the nondescript warehouse itself. If they didn't feel it, why did he? What was it?

He managed to push his way through the sensation and enter the den by way of the small door next to the main entrance.

The contents of the bustling facility had changed since he was there before. It was not just that the floats there were much closer to completion, nor that dozens more people were working on them, or spreading plans out on tables, or conferring in corners. Something unseen was building in the very air. The feeling was much stronger inside than it had been outside. It was intense. Griffen wanted to fight back against it. Not that it was sinister, but it was powerful. Yes, that was it: power. It was concentrated here as he had never felt it, not even at the conclave. It must be true that dragons possessed far more power than the average being of supernatural heritage.

He let himself absorb the sensation for a moment. Like a perfume, it entered his body by every pore and orifice. His natural mojo fought off the intruding energy until he could accept it as nonthreatening. He even liked it.

With a proprietary air, Griffen surveyed the dozens of people working on floats. They were making the float that would carry him through the streets of New Orleans. He tried to pretend that he was a real king, and these were his lackeys. They were going to go out and do battle with the rush-hour traffic and the minions of the tourism industry. He would wave to his thousands of loyal subjects, many of whom would be young ladies who would show their loyalty to him by raising their shirts with nothing on underneath. Then the whole idea overwhelmed him with the absurdity of it. He laughed out loud. The big dragon in the corner seemed to wink at him. He had to stop getting his information from the evening news.

Somehow, the sound of his voice echoed above the noise of drills, lathes, and saws. Etienne and Terence looked up from what they were doing and came to meet him.

"Mr. Griffen!" Etienne said, shaking his hand and clapping him on the back with his little notebook. "Good to see you!"

"Hi, Etienne," Griffen said. "You called me? Is this important? You got me out of bed, you know."

The werewolf-dragon hybrid immediately flipped to a page in his book. "Time-line," he said. "You still don't have a tuxedo yet, do you?"

"Well, no," Griffen admitted. "I was going to go when I had a chance. Is
that
why you called me?"

"Well, yeah," Etienne said, as if it was self-evident. "It is important, Mr. Griffen."

Griffen felt his neck get hot with fury. It was getting kind of old, having Etienne always know what was happening--or not. But Griffen had talked to other prescient people. The gift was not a friendly one. Shirley, a motherly woman who offered tarot readings in Jackson Square, actually quoted to her clients from the dreams she had had about them the night or the week before, not from the cards. Her record, as far as Griffen's experience with her went, was impressive.

"You're just a servant to the dreams," she had told him. "More than half the time I wish I had no idea of what is going to come. Some people kill themselves. Some drink or use drugs to try and chase the pictures away. The rest of us learn to cope."

So Griffen tried to be patient with Etienne. Still, he had woken Griffen from too short a night's sleep.

"It's just a tux," he said. "I was going to get to it. You probably already knew that."

"Well, I did," Etienne said. "And I know you waitin' too long to get going. As king of our krewe, you gonna get invitations to a bunch of associated krewes, Antaeus, Nautilus, and Aeolus, who share our marchin' day, for a start, but some of the superkrewes are glad to have us up and going again, and they will also send invitations. We return the favor. You could end up goin' to a whole bunch of balls and parties. You gonna need at least three suits."

"Three!" Griffen protested. "Why can't I just have one?" Etienne shook his head. "They'll be in and out of the dry cleaners all season, so you gotta make sure you don't get stuck without one. Ain't no substitute for black tie. You can't just show up in a sports jacket and say you forgot. And if you miss, it's a big insult, to them and to us. Get enough suits."

Dry-cleaning a suit ran a minimum of twenty dollars. Griffen multiplied that times three tuxedos, which probably cost more to clean, and added the red ink to the mental deficit he was compiling. But there was no arguing with someone who knew the future and had probably seen him renting the suits. He tossed off a mock salute.

"Aye, aye, Captain."

"See, that's good," Etienne said, with his sunny, patient smile. "It'll all work out okay. Here." He gave Griffen a sheet of paper that looked as if it had been copied and recopied many times. "Here's some local tailors who rent tuxes. You probably won' be able to get any in town unless you lucky, but no sense in not tryin'. Metairie is gonna be out, too. They've got dozens of deir own krewes now. Try Baton Rouge, maybe. I tink that's where you gonna luck out."

Griffen resolved to save time and go to the Baton Rouge addresses first. No sense in reinventing the wheel. Langford poked him in the other elbow with his clipboard.

"While you're out looking for tuxes," he said, "I need you to go in for a fitting on your robes for the parade. We had general measurements for you already."

"How?" Griffen demanded. They looked at him patiently. "Never mind, I know."

"And you need to get your ladies together. They have to go in for their fittings, too."

"Sooner's better'n later, Mr. Griffen," Etienne said.

"Hey, Griffen!"

Phil Grover, in charge of charity, looked up from the enormous fountain pen that he was painting, and came over. "I want to thank you for your donation. I didn't expect anything so soon. A lot of money flows through your operation, doesn't it?"

Griffen pulled back just a little, and not from the red paint smeared on Phil's coveralls. He didn't like outsiders asking about the finances of the operation. "Proportionately, I suppose so."

"Well, it's welcome," Phil said. "I can't tell you what it's going to mean to a lot of families here in the city. We have thirty-four families who have been left homeless or partly homeless because of fire in the last eighteen months. Ladybug gives them grants proportional to their situation and income."

Griffen listened until his ears rang. It was unbelievable how much detail each and every one of the lieutenants kept in his head. He interrupted Phil in midspate.

"How'd you get interested in helping Ladybug?"

"Oh, pretty much every krewe has a charity or three that they donate to. Like your business, money comes in large amounts. Contrary to you, we are officially not-for-profit, so when there is surplus cash not allocated against next year's expenses, we donate it. There are always good causes to support."

"There have never been 'next year's expenses' in Fafnir, not since the forties," Griffen said suspiciously. Had he had uncovered the secret Stoner was talking about? Was this a money-laundering operation?

Phil held up his hands and laughed. "You caught me! No, I have been doing the same thing for various krewes here and in Metairie since I was twenty. Not too much younger than you. Now I work for a nonprofit as the vice president, coordinating fund-raising. He named the charity. I started working for the company because I had learned how to fill out the paperwork and shake the can for a krewe, and I keep getting asked to do the same job on krewes because I work in the industry. I suppose you could say that Mardi Gras and my career are entwined. Makes you believe in Fate, doesn't it?"

Griffen was impressed. And puzzled all over again. The krewe seemed to be just what he thought it was. For the life of him, Griffen could not find any sinister meaning in their operation. They were all much, much too busy organizing for Mardi Gras season and doing genuine good works. He didn't understand what Stoner was concerned about.

"Hey, there, Griffen! You listen to this. I know I am right, and this tight-ass is wrong." It was Mitchell, the parade marshal. He came bustling up with a sheaf of papers in his hand. He brandished them at Griffen. "Callum here says I am wasting money, but I am investing for the future of the noble Krewe of Fafnir."

"I am not. I am saying that he is jumping the gun. We have a dozen other places that those funds could go that are more vital."

"What could be more vital than preventing future outlay?" Mitchell asked.

"Preventing a shortfall today! What do you think, Griffen? We would really value your opinion."

"Uh," Griffen said, looking from one to the other. "Isn't this something that Etienne here should solve? I'm only king this year. He's the captain."

Both dragons looked at Etienne and back to Griffen. "But you've got the pure blood, Griffen," Mitchell said, as if it should be self-evident. "You're the senior dragon here. By a long chalk."

Griffen looked at Etienne, worried that he would feel usurped, but Etienne had that serene look on his face that said he had seen what was happening and had learned to accept it or really didn't mind. Griffen still felt guilty, but he asked. "What is it you're trying to work out?"

He listened as closely as he could to Mitchell's explanation of the outright purchase of fifteen small float bodies on a rent-to-own basis, citing the future amortization of assets and depreciation versus rental. Griffen did his best to drag concepts from his Introduction to Business Administration class, but finally held his hands up. "You guys know what kind of money this krewe is bringing in. I don't."

"I can show you, young man," Callum said, thrusting forth his BlackBerry and showing Griffen a complex chart on a screen that was eye-strainingly small. "It isn't nearly enough to cover what Mitchell thinks we need."

Griffen held up his hands. "No, I mean, this is something that the two of you would be better working out on your own. If it takes more discussion than you've given it, then maybe you need to sit down and talk until you've got a real understanding of both positions. I know that if you really ask my opinion . . ."

"Yes," both men said, leaning forward.

". . . All you'll get is a guess, and not an educated one at that."

They looked at one another. Mitchell glowered. "I don't want to hammer all this stuff into this fool's head."

"I'm not sure you could understand what you would need to know," Callum retorted.

Griffen threw up his hands. "Since you asked, my judgment is it's not my problem. Sorry, guys." He turned away. He found that his heart was racing.

"That was a nice, pretty little solution, Mr. Griffen," Etienne said, staying by his side. He smiled. "They each been hopin' you be their own ally, so they haven't bothered to work it out between them. Woulda taken five minutes if they tried."

"That's really why I'm down here today, isn't it?" Griffen asked.

"They had a little lesson to learn, Mr. Griffen, but there's one there for you, too."

"A humility lesson?" Griffen said bitterly. "Thanks a lot."

Etienne looked at him seriously. "In the long run, none of the petty stuff 's important. Just gettin' this parade off exactly right is what matters. You keep that in mind." He patted Griffen on the back. "You just what this krewe needs. Just you walk around a little and talk to people. Enjoy youself for a minute."

He went back to a group of dragons in the corner, leaving Griffen by himself in the middle of the vast room.

Griffen took his advice and went on a small tour of the facility. Everyone seemed to have his or her assigned tasks and was executing them confidently. With no experience, he was at a loss. He felt small and young and completely out of place walking past the partially finished floats, the knots of people talking, and the tables pushed against the walls. He had probably better leave.

He weaved his way between the committees and machine tools, smiling at everyone who met his eyes.

A voice rose above the screeching din. "It's
got
to be the flagon with the dragon."

Griffen spun on his heel.

"What?" he asked, not sure if he had heard correctly. "Who said that?"

"I did!" One of the younger men, Jacob, grinned at him from a card table behind the green dragon float. "Hey, Griffen, come on over."

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"We're ordering throws for the parade. You ought to be in on this, young dragon, since you're the king. Bobbie, did you say four thousand?" A tiny woman with pale skin and long black eyelashes nodded. Jacob nodded and noted tiny numbers next to an entry on the inevitable clipboard. Griffen sat down on a stool at the edge of the table. The surface was covered with hundreds of strings of beads. Shiny smooth beads, faceted beads, braided beads, twisted beads in metallic or plain white, some strings with large, ornamental beads, some with multiple strands or a pendant, such as a bottle opener or a flashlight. Griffen let the strings of beads flow through his hands like shining waterfalls. He couldn't stop playing with them. Neither could the others.

"And what about the specials?" asked a fat woman with brilliant green eyes in a tawny face surrounded by ochre hair.

"I have some numbers," said a slender man with hollow cheekbones. "The float captains want a few hanks each, but not too many. They're just too expensive."

"But they are amazing," said the second man. He held up a handful of strands for Griffen's inspection. Spaced between the gleaming metallic beads were five or seven large, shaped beads two inches across. "You'll probably want some for your float, too. We have dragon's-head necklaces, purple with green eyes, green with gold eyes, and gold with purple eyes. A few of the really fancy ones have LEDs inside, and the really, really fancy ones blink." He touched an invisible switch near the clasp of the necklace, and the dragons' eyes flashed on and off.