"We're here. We're really here." Grinning, Joe Hardy turned in a circle, taking in the costumed revelers, parade floats on the backs of pickup trucks and small flatbed trailers, the wandering musicians. "The best party in the world and it's all ours — and all free!"
The cramped, crowded streets glowed with color in the sunlight, fluttering flags, glitter, lights, and bunting. He and his brother Frank needed this break. They'd been working hard to help Dad catch up on his casework, and, at the same time, carrying part-time hours at Bayport Community College, instead of the on-again, off-again, as-money-allowed scheduling they'd struggled with the past year. But Dad had scored big cases in Europe and Africa, and as a result, the money was there. Dad had ordered them off the last case, presented them with tickets to New Orleans and shanghai'd them to the airport, with a final command to "be normal young guys, for a change".
As usual, Frank ignored his brother. Only a year separated them, but Frank took the responsibilities of "eldest" seriously and acted much older, even to his clean-cut prep-school-jock looks, as opposed to Joe's looser, long-haired shaggy casual. Frank hefted a suitcase out of the cab's trunk and shoved it into Joe's arms, before turning to look over their hotel: an older, elegant red building with green-wood balcony doors and shutters, a wrought-iron balcony dripping with lights and flags, the front door encased in the same wrought-iron work. "Not bad," Frank said. "Not bad at all."
"Lighten up," Joe said. "Think of the girls. All those Cajun beauties. Decadence. Parties. Girls."
"Sleep," Frank said. "Lots and lots of sleep."
"You're in the middle of the biggest party in the world, and you're going to sleep? Who comes to the Mardi Gras to sleep?"
"It's a vacation. It's supposedto be rest. Time to recharge."
"Yeah, well, you can recharge. I'm going to party."
Frank's mouth quirked. "Look at it this way. It leaves more for you."
"True," Joe said, with an exaggerated sigh. Turning again to take it all in, grinning at the Mardi Gras chaos around them, he raked a hand through his gold-brown hair to get the travel-tangles out. "It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it."
Despite the external elegance, the hotel's inside was shabby, but still costing a lot of money for being just off Bourbon Street. Joe looked around dubiously. Dad getting rooms so close to Mardi Gras time meant there hadn't been much choice, but still…Joe shook his head. It didn't matter. They were here, and it was paid for; that was all that mattered. But Joe still hung back in the room doorway to give a grey-haired bellhop space to shove their suitcases on top of the free-standing closet.
Frank went to poke at the AC unit. Even from the door, there was a sour, rusted smell. "Too stuffy," Frank muttered. He gave up on the AC, tried the windows with no luck.
"The word is 'rank'." Joe settled for leaning in the doorway. He didn't see any obvious signs of mice or cockroaches. The room looked mostly clean. "But it's not like we'll be using it much."
"This'n's our best room," the bellhop said proudly. He snagged up another set of suitcases just inside the door and started to push past Joe.
If this was the best, Joe didn't want to see the worst. "Whose are those?"
"Previous tenant's…"
"He left without his things?" Frank said.
With a sigh, the bellhop set the suitcases down outside the door. "Yes…and no. He left the room, but he's still in New Orleans."
"Say again?"
"They found him floatin' in the bayou just outside town." The bellhop shrugged. "Somethin' to do with voodoo. Not like I know anythin' and I don't hear nothin' and I just listens, but that's what they say."
Joe swallowed. Not what he needed to hear. "Voodoo?"
"You people don't really believe that stuff, do you?" Frank said, grinning.
The bellhop now glared. "Young man, let me give you some free advice. Never. Take. Voodoo. Lightly. Lot of people take it like you, they find themselves in big trouble. Especially during Mardi Gras."
"Oh, come on," Frank said, but the bellhop snatched up the suitcases and stalked out.
Unsettled, Joe watched him go. The previous tenant, murdered by voodoo. Great. He kept his misgivings to himself; Frank was forever on his case about the weird things Joe had encountered — or just imagined, according to Frank.
Frank shook his head. "He sounded like Kris, all that spooky stuff."
Well, that explained how Dad had gotten the room. "So the room's probably haunted on top of it." Joe wasn't sure he was joking.
"If we're lucky. That'll give us a story to top hers."
"I vote we don't worry about it until we're too tired to stand up." Best to play it off. Any excuse to get out of the room; Joe was feeling spooked. "C'mon. Mardi Gras awaits."
The hotel manager was arguing with a woman at the front desk as Frank and Joe passed back through the small lobby. The woman glared as Frank and Joe walked by, a glare which turned into an eyes-narrowed stare at Joe.
His mood lifted. Girls, he could handle. She looked about in her mid-twenties, brunette & pale, wearing a Karma tour shirt. Definitely cute. Joe gave her a flirting grin; she didn't return it. Instead, she gave him a slow nod and turned back to the manager, though she still seemed to watch Joe from the corner of her eye.
Unsettled and unsure why, Joe stood there a moment, then caught up to his brother. "Did you see that girl?"
"Hmmm?" Frank only watched the streets.
Joe started to say something anyway, then changed his mind. A girl was staring at me sounded stupid, and he wasn't about to give Frank any more ammunition in their never-ending rounds of sibling rivalry. "Never mind."
The streets were a welter of costumed chaos: clowns, Indians, people throwing beads and candy, stilt-walkers, street magicians, a jazz band on the corner. Color, lights, and music were everywhere, dazzling, bright, and loud. Joe kept getting struck by how small the streets were — there was barely enough room for cars to park or for a parade to pass, but somehow, it all managed. At the corner of a passage between two wedding-cake buildings, a turbaned midget hawked "the best voodoo show in New Orleans" to passers-by. No matter where Joe turned, there was something to look at, someone to watch, something bright and gaudy to catch his eye.
Someone ran into them, from behind. "Hey, handsome," breathed a female voice, "fancy meeting you here. Maybe we'll meet again."
Joe turned. The woman from the hotel. Before he could react, she pressed against him, running her hands over his chest…as she kissed him, full on the mouth. Caught off-guard, Joe only stood there as her mouth probed his daintily, but just as things were getting interesting, she shoved away. With a wink and a challenging stare, she backed up, stumbled into Frank, then staggered away into the crowd. But Joe had caught a flick of movement —
"You and girls," Frank said.
"She got your wallet," Joe blurted, then shoved after her, Frank just behind him, both of them yelling for people to stop her. In the crowd of costumes and chaos and traffic, she was too easy to lose. People moved in front of them, laughing and grabbing at the brothers; trucks with parade floats blew their horns; others cursed at them…
Breaking into a clear space, Joe skidded to a halt. She was nowhere in sight.
"Credit cards and cash," Frank groaned. "Dad's going to kill us!"
Joe stretched to see over the crowd, trying to figure out where she'd disappeared to. Nothing, no one, not even a cop in sight. "She can't have gone far. She was arguing with the hotel manager. Maybe he knows her."
"Hey — Hardy!"
Both Joe and Frank turned. "Tag?" Joe said, incredulous.
"What are you two doing here?" Kris Mountainhawk stood at the nearby street corner, Bourbon and Dumaine. Dressed in her usual gray t-shirt and faded black jeans, she was a small, plain blonde about Joe's age. She'd been the kid-next-door back home in Bayport, until her adoptive mother Mar had moved back to San Francisco because of her job — at least, that was the story they'd been given at the time. Given some things Kris had claimed — things that Frank steadfastly refused to believe — Joe wasn't certain he wanted the real story.
The question sounded rude, but Kris had always had trouble with people-stuff; Joe was used to it. "Parties, decadence, wild women," Joe said, deadpan. "The usual."
"Don't listen to him," Frank said. "He wouldn't know what to do with a wild woman, even with an instruction manual."
"Yeah, like you do," Joe said.
Kris looked from Joe to Frank and back. "Um…"
She hadn't changed. Now grinning, Joe pulled her into a rough big-brother hug, and laughed as she squeaked in surprise — and again, when Frank did the same and got the same reaction. "It's good to see you, too, Tag."
"Mardi Gras's the last place I would've expected you," Frank said to her. "Is Mar here, too?"
"Um…no," Kris said, reddening. "Not really, I mean."
With a raised eyebrow, a man came up behind Kris. He was Black, lean, with a young-old face that made it hard to tell his age, and dressed in a rainbow-hued dashiki with glittery-beads in his short dreadlocks. He looked familiar, but it took Joe a moment to place him, from photos Kris had sent after she'd moved back West.
"It's Joshua, right?" Frank said to Kris and the man. "Your Army 'big brother'?"
Joshua grinned and reached out his hand to shake. "The one and only, chè. You two are just as notorious, from all the tales she's told."
"It's a dirty job," Joe sighed, "but somebody has to do it."
"Your turn, Tagalong," Frank said to Kris. "Same question."
She and Joshua exchanged a quick glance. "Same answer," Joshua said; his accent sounded vaguely French. "Sort of. She's letting me corrupt her. She doesn't get the whole beads thing, though."
Both Frank and Joe looked at Kris, who blushed even harder. "The voodoo thing, actually," she muttered. "You know."
"You and your spooky stuff, Tag," Frank said, grinning and shaking his head.
"Um…are you in trouble, big brothers? I heard you yelling and saw you running."
"Pickpocket. Got our wallets." Joe wasn't going to mention what the girl'd said; it made no sense. Maybe he'd just imagined it. Given some of the cases that Dad had them working in the last year, it was too easy to get paranoid.
"The New Orleans welcome committee," Joshua muttered.
"Oh no," Kris said at the same time. "Need help? I know you're good for it."
"We're okay," Frank assured her. "We'll call Dad. He'll yell a bit —"
"A lot," Joe said.
"— but he can wire us money."
"Or I'll just sell my body, instead." Joe heaved another exaggerated sigh. "I'm sure there's plenty of rich women tourists for me to hustle."
"Joe…!"
"No need to go that far," Joshua said, as Kris blushed again. "My aunt and uncle own a restaurant here, Duprè's."
"It's just down Bourbon, that way." Kris nodded. "They live above it. They own the building and that's where we're staying. Come over. I'll pay for dinner, at least."
Joshua snorted. "I'll do better — your friends are my friends, chè. They hold open house during Mardi Gras. I'm talking rooftop and gallery right over all this chaos with my uncle's barbecue. You two seem straight-edge enough to help me convince 'em I'm still on the straight and narrow." Joshua's mouth twitched. "Though if you still want to sell your body, Joe, I know someone who'll take you up on it."
"Uh…sure." The joke had changed, but Joe wasn't sure how.
"You gotta do better than that if you want to bait him in," Kris said to Joshua. "They know the local Zydeco scene really well, Joe. They got some of their musician friends coming 'round. No pressure, though." A shy, rare smile. "Um…I'm guessing you probably don't want your kid sister hangin' round your partying."
This time Joe and Frank exchanged grins. Kris had come a long way from the abused runaway and shy tagalong they'd unofficially adopted as their kid sister. "Something like that," Joe said. "I'm partying. Frank's sleeping."
"Suuuure he is," Kris said. "Anyway. The invite's open, big brothers. Just tell 'em you're with us."
"Thanks, Tag," Frank said. "We'll take you up on that."
"My cousin's waiting." Joshua nudged Kris. "We need to scoot."
Kris blinked, caught herself. "Um…okay." Joshua sauntered off, but Kris hesitated, giving Joe a long look.
It was too much like the stare the pickpocket had given him in the hotel lobby. "Okay," Joe said, opting for the wisecrack. "Be mysterious, Tag."
"Be careful, Joe," Kris said, quiet and serious. "Watch who you trust. And watch your back, both of you." With that, she ran after Joshua.
"What was that about?" Frank said.
Joe watched them. Kris and Joshua ducked across the street, behind a passing float. They looked as if they were having a heated argument.
"They're here on business, I bet," Frank said. "I saw Karma posters in the lobby. Odd that Mar's not here, though."
"Whatever it is, we aren't here for it. We're here to party, and I have a lot of Cajun beauties to go through." When Frank didn't respond, Joe gave him a mock-glare. "Right?"
"Right," Frank said. "Let's call Dad and get it over with."