Prosecco Pink (24 page)

I took a step backwards to retrieve my Ruger from beneath my pillow when another bang sounded. Then my whole body went slack. It was just Glenda slamming doors in her apartment upstairs.

I looked at the ceiling and gave a long exhale. "All clear, little buddy."

Napoleon relaxed and jumped onto the bed.

"Good idea," I said, nestling back into my pillows. But there was no way I was going to let myself fall sleep again with a death threat hanging over my head. I glanced at my phone display and was shocked to see that it was almost one o'clock. I'd been awake until sunrise, and then I must have drifted off.

"I need a double espresso to deal with my double threat," I muttered as I checked my voice mail. David had tried to call me, but there was nothing from Veronica. And given that I'd knocked on her door and texted her at least ten times since finding that creepy candle, I was starting to get worried. Then a sickening thought occurred to me—w
hat if my aggressor had done something to Veronica?

I held my breath as I dialed David's number.

"Yo," he answered.

"Hey, have you seen Veronica this morning?" I gushed in a single breath.

"Yup."

"Yay," I snarked in keeping with the one-word
y-
theme. "Where the hell has she been? I've been trying to get hold of her since yesterday to tell her I got another death threat."

A paper bag crinkled on the other end of the line.

"Oh wow," he said, chewing what sounded like a mighty mouthful. "Like, are you all right?"

"Yes," I muttered, unintentionally continuing the theme. "But do you know why Veronica hasn't called me back?"

"Uh-huh." He swallowed loudly. "She lost her phone while we were staking out this lady's cheating husband at The Roosevelt Hotel. We were there until like eleven this morning, and then she had to meet the lady for brunch at The Veranda."

I was glad I'd escaped that lengthy assignment. But still, I was kind of offended that Veronica had asked David to be her partner and not me. "What are you eating, anyway?"

"Uh, Veronica bought me a bag of beignets."

Another knife to the gut
, I thought as my hand drifted to my empty belly. She never bought me any beignets after a stakeout. "So, what are you doing working on a Sunday if you've been up all night? You need to get some rest."

"Can't." He made finger-licking noises. "I have to make up some hours. Besides, I'm all right. After I dropped you off yesterday, I went back to the vassal's and
shut that party doooown
."

Of course, for most college students, staying until the end of a party would mean that they were hung over. But I knew David was jacked up on that hyper-caffeinated gamer drink. "Dude, you need to lay off The Dew. Otherwise, you seriously might not sleep again until you graduate from college. Now, why did you call me earlier?"

There was another telltale crinkle of the beignet bag.

"I tracked down a descendent of Beau Patterson on ancestry.com. Her name is Kristy Patterson, and luckily for us, she hasn't set many of her privacy settings on Facebook."

"What did you find out?"

"On Thursday she posted that she's in town this week for Shore Leave."

"That's fantastic," I enthused, referring both to Kristy and to the notion of thousands of muscle-bound sailors in uniform flooding the streets of New Orleans. "I guess she's with the Navy?"

"Uh," he began through a bite of beignet, "her profile says she's a jeweler in New York City."

"A jeweler? Then what's she doing on shore leave? Trying to find herself a sailor?"
Not that there was anything wrong with that
.

He cleared his throat. "Oh, it's not for sailors. Shore Leave is, like, a four-day pirate festival in the French Quarter. It's run by this group of women called the NOLA Wenches."

Well that stood to reason. Any women who would invite thousands of men in velvet and feathers with fake pirate accents to flood the streets where I worked were wenches in my book. "When does it end?"

"Today's the last day."

"Hm." I wrinkled my mouth. "That doesn't give me much time to find her, but I'll see what I can do. If all else fails, I'll Facebook her."

"I tried that. But if you're not her friend, the message goes to her 'Other' folder. So I doubt she'll get it."

"Okay. Is there a good picture of her on the page, at least?"

"Lots of them. She looks like she's really short, maybe in her thirties. And she's wearing something you'll be interested to see."

I sighed. "Please tell me it's not pirate garb."

"Nope," he said with a lip smack. "It's an emerald-cut pink diamond ring."

I bolted upright in bed. That
was
something I wanted to see.

*  *  *

After a double espresso, a double-decker sandwich, and some Double Stuf Oreos—I was big into themes today—I peeked out the front window and spotted Veronica's car in the driveway. I dialed her number in case she'd found her phone, but the call went to voice mail.

I chewed on my pinky nail. It was two o'clock, so I figured that Veronica was out like a light after her all-night stakeout. But I had to warn her about the threat. I scribbled a quick note about my ordeal and slipped out front, keeping my eyes peeled for a killer. I pounded on Veronica's door and waited.

The door of Glenda's apartment flew open, and I caught sight of black thigh-high boots descending the stairs. Once I saw the rest of Glenda, I averted my eyes. Aside from the boots, she had a black patch on her eye, a stuffed parrot on her shoulder, and not much else.

"
What
is all the racket about, Miss Franki?" she asked.

"I need to talk to Veronica," I said, pretending to be engrossed in my phone. "Besides, I could ask you the same thing. Your door slamming woke me up."

"Well, I couldn't find my skull and crossbones pasties."

"I see you found them," I said, keeping my eyes glued to my phone. "You wouldn't, by any chance, be going to Shore Leave, would you?"

"When the Quarter is filled with pirates, sugar, I plunder."

I looked up—and winced. "I'm on my way there now for that case I've been working on."

Glenda eye's lit up like a lighthouse. "Oh, a treasure hunt," she squealed, wiggling her hips. "Can I help you look for the pink diamond?"

My initial thought was that I'd rather be in Davie Jones' locker than at a pirate party with Glenda. But I had to admit that it made sense to go with her. She'd know the popular pirate hangouts, which could narrow down my search. "Okay, but let's take my car."

"Not until we get you a costume," she said, tightening the knot on the transparent scarf that served as her skirt. "I've got a reputation to protect. I don't want pirates to think I rent to a landlubber." She pointed her cigarette holder at me. "Come."

I slid the note under Veronica's door and followed Glenda upstairs with a mixture of dread and anticipation. I was anything but eager to let her dress me, but I was excited to finally see her apartment. Judging from the Red Light District décor of my place, I figured hers would look something like the set of the film
Moulin Rouge
or maybe the Louisiana version of
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
. But when I entered the all-white fur, feather, and leather living room, I didn't see any stripper poles or sex swings. In fact, there wasn't even a sofa. Just a six-foot tall champagne glass. "Wow," I remarked, impressed. "Is that one of those champagne Jacuzzis like they have at that resort in the Poconos?"

"Bite your tongue, sugar," Glenda spat. "Under no circumstances do you fill a champagne glass with
water
." She grabbed a key from a hook on the wall. "Now let's go find you something suitable to wear."

We went to the apartment next door to hers, which held her infamous stripper costume collection. I'd expected to see racks overflowing with gowns, but instead they were thick with thongs, packets of pasties, tiny strips of cloth and various, um, accessories.

"Of course, none of my pirate corsets will fit you," she said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "But I have a Southern belle costume that should work." She began rummaging in a closet and emerged with a dome-shaped metal contraption the size of a children's playscape.

Before I could protest—after all, I wasn't
that
much bigger than Glenda—she'd stripped me down and dressed me up faster than a wardrobe changer at a fashion show. After a few twists of a curling iron, she led me to a standing mirror. "What do you think, Miss Franki? It's a replica of Scarlett O'Hara's white ruffled prayer dress from the opening scene of
Gone with the Wind.
"

I stared at my ringleted reflection in shock. Troy had been right about crinoline dresses. In fact, I was larger than "larger than life." Only, unlike Scarlett O'Hara, there was no chance in hell I was going to church in Glenda's version of the getup since it had a tear-away bodice and peepholes beneath the ruffles. "Frankly, I think it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase
tent dress.
You could put an entire pack of Boy Scouts under here."

"Not the Boy Scouts, sugar, the Scoutmasters," she said with a saucy wink. "Speaking of the opposite sex, the dress has a pull-cord."

I had no idea what she was talking about, but it didn't sound good.

"It's here on your right," she continued, grasping a silk cord at my waist. "If you pull it down, it'll raise the skirt so you can flash your man."

I stared at her, open-mouthed.

"What did you expect?" she asked with a shrug. "It's a stripper costume."

Out of curiosity, I gave a slight tug on the cord. The force of the metal cage beneath the dress was so powerful that it knocked the mirror against the wall.

"Whoa!" Glenda shouted as she stood the mirror upright. "This dress wasn't made for the boxing ring—it was designed for the stripping stage. You've got to make sure the object of your affection is standing at a distance before you raise that thing."

I looked at my reflection again. My skirt might be the size of the Superdome, but now that I knew it could take down a persistent pirate—or a potential perpetrator—it was really starting to grow on me.

*  *  *

I bent over and examined the huge hole that Glenda's cigarette had burned into my skirt. "I told you that you shouldn't smoke in a convertible! Now there's an extra peephole in this dress, and it's right at crotch level."

Glenda took a drag off the offending instrument and narrowed her eyes. "Personally, I think it's an improvement on the design."

"Maybe if I was in a strip club, but I'm on Bourbon Street," I huffed as I did my best to arrange the sash to cover the hole.

"Same difference, sugar," she said, stubbing out her cigarette with her boot toe. "Now, who or what are we looking for?"

"Kristy Patterson." I showed Glenda a picture of the petite brunette from my phone. "She's a descendent of Beau the Black, and she may be wearing a pink diamond ring."

Glenda blinked. "
The
pink diamond?"

"That's one of the things I need to find out," I replied, stuffing my phone in my bodice.

"Well, if she's descended from a pirate, then we need to check Jean Lafitte's."

"Sounds good to me," I said. "I could go for a purple voodoo." I didn't usually drink on the job, but I could use a little relief from driving this dress.

"Not the Blacksmith Shop, sugar," she said with a frustrated flip of her hair. "I mean Jean Lafitte's Old Absinthe House. All the real pirates go there to partake of the so-called green fairy."

"A little green voodoo will work too."

As we set off down the center of the street, the crowd parted like the Red Sea did for Moses. But it wasn't to make room for my dress—it was to make way for Glenda. She was in stripper-strut mode, and with her dyed platinum hair swaying in rhythm with her breasts, she was quite the sight.

"Begad!" a pirate cried. "It be Gunpowder Glenda!"

"Good ol' Gunpowder!" another yelled.

Glenda gave a satisfied smirk and kept strutting.

I kicked my Keds into gear and maneuvered myself to her side. "Why are they calling you 'gunpowder'?"

She gave a throaty laugh. "Because when you load my cannon, Miss Franki, it goes off with a bang!"

I dropped back behind, sorry I'd asked.

When we arrived at the Old Absinthe House, I navigated the entryway with a shove from behind from Glenda.

I flailed my arms to regain my balance. Once I was steady on my feet, I couldn't believe my eyes. Drunken swashbucklers and their women, er, wenches, were singing the predictable "Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest" shanty as they sloshed mugs of beer and grog. It was like a tavern scene straight out of
Pirates of the Caribbean
. The only thing missing was Johnny Depp, and trust me when I say that his absence was felt.

My impromptu Depp daydream was rudely interrupted when a doppelganger for Peter Ustinov in
Blackbeard's Ghost
approached us.

"Gunpowder Glenda?" he asked, wide-eyed. "Well blow me down!" And then he gave a hearty laugh and slapped his knee. "Or just blow me!"

Glenda put a hand on her hip. "You old scallywag!" she exclaimed with a bat of her eyelashes. "Is that a hornpipe in your pocket? Or are you just happy to see me?"

I rolled my eyes. If this went on much longer, I was going to find a plank and walk it.

I left Glenda to cavort with her pirate and began scanning the room for Kristy Patterson. After only a few minutes, I was starting to get discouraged. I didn't think she was at the bar, and I was overwhelmed at the thought of searching the entire French Quarter.

On a hunch, I pulled my phone from my bodice and checked Kristy's Facebook page. I was relieved to see that she'd updated her location at two forty-five. According to her post, she was going to be sampling rum for an hour or so at Pirate's Alley Café and Olde Absinthe House, which was located on a narrow street known as Pirate's Alley about a half mile away. It was three thirty now, so that gave me fifteen minutes, give or take, to walk there.