Chapter 6

Jarrod somehow managed to concentrate on finalizing the paperwork for his contract and was soon ready for the next day. Being ready for tonight was something else entirely. Nick paced a lot – Jarrod tried to hustle him out for a while so he could do his pacing outside, but Nick refused to leave him. The time went by quickly, though, and soon they had dressed and were ready for whatever was going to happen at Picard's.

Jarrod put the envelope of cash the policeman had given him into the inner breast pocket of his suit jacket just as he was planning to leave. "Remember, ten minutes," he said to Nick. "Just go over to Canal Street, turn left, and keep walking until you see Picard's. It's fairly large, you can't miss it. Look for me at one of the twenty-one tables."

Nick nodded. "Are you armed?"

Jarrod shook his head.

"Not even a derringer?"

Jarrod shook his head again. "There will be police officers watching me before I even get in the door. There's not much danger to me here, Nick."

"Oh, yeah? What if this guy asks you for details about who he's supposed to hit?"

"I don't have any," Jarrod said, "but I'm not supposed to. Jack was supposed to be acting as a middle man, just setting up the payoff. The instructions are supposed to be in this envelope with the money."

"What if this hit man realizes you're not Jack? What if this hit man sends another middle man?"

Jarrod gave a tiny smile to his brother. "You're gonna brood over everything that can go wrong, aren't you?"

"Somebody better," Nick said.

Jarrod ignored the questions. "Don't come armed," he said. "They don't like weapons in the place. Just follow me in, find what table I'm at and then sit at another one if you want to keep watch. This all ought to be over in an hour or so. I can put my contract to rest tomorrow, and you and I can enjoy an evening with a couple nice ladies I'll set us up with tomorrow night."

Nick smiled, but uneasily. "You just watch out for yourself tonight. Tomorrow can take care of itself."

Jarrod gave Nick's arm a reassuring slap and went out.

Neither one of them was ready for what actually happened that night. Jarrod followed instructions, walked down to Picard's and found a spot at a twenty-one table, and soon just enjoyed himself playing and actually winning a little money. At one point he caught sight of Nick passing nearby and saw him find a spot at another table. Jarrod looked around for his policeman contact DuMont, too, but didn't see him. He didn't know what other police might be around. As nine o'clock drew close, he kept one eye on the game and another on Nick, deciding the police could take care of themselves.

And then it happened. Nothing. No one approached him, no one who sat down with him at the table seemed to have anything to say to him. All Jarrod got was a passing, "Hello, Jack," from one fellow who he couldn't tell was Darby's friend or foe. Nine-thirty, ten, ten-thirty, eleven all rolled around, and absolutely nothing happened.

Jarrod saw Nick get up from the nearby table and start roaming around. Jarrod looked again and finally spotted DuMont, but the man didn't do anything but sit down at another table and play cards. Eleven thirty, midnight rolled around and still nothing happened.

Something had gone wrong. Maybe this hit man had been by and somehow knew that Jarrod was not Darby. If so, he now probably suspected this was all a set-up and was gone. Whether he would be back or not was anyone's guess.

Jarrod finally got up from playing twenty-one, now about two hundred dollars richer. As he did, DuMont also got up, and as they passed each other, the officer just said, "Go home."

Jarrod looked around for Nick and saw him at the bar, drinking a beer. Jarrod nodded toward the exit, letting Nick know he was leaving. Remembering that a hit man was not the only threat around here, that a man leaving here with money could get robbed out in the street fairly easily, Nick followed along at a closer distance than he had come in here in.

But nothing happened on the street either. This whole evening had been one whole lot of nothing happening, except that Jarrod and Nick both had more money than they had come in with. Jarrod got back to the hotel and into their suite, and Nick was not far behind.

"What the hell happened?" was the first thing Nick asked.

"I don't know," Jarrod said as he took his jacket off. "I don't know if this hit man saw me and decided I wasn't Darby, or if he never came in the first place or what, but nobody ever contacted me. I spotted my policeman friend eventually and he just said to leave."

"Waste of a perfectly good evening, thanks again to Darby," Nick muttered.

"I made some money," Jarrod said with a shrug, and then paused as he took his tie off. "I wonder if Darby has suddenly surfaced again."

"I didn't see him at Picard's, and I was looking," Nick said.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Jarrod and Nick looked at each other suspiciously before Jarrod went to the door and opened it a crack. The police officer who had roped Jarrod into all this stood there. Jarrod let him in.

"Nick, this is Officer DuMont," Jarrod said and closed the door behind the policeman. "This is my brother, Nick Barkley. What the heck happened?"

"Nothing," DuMont said. "We don't know why."

"So where does that leave us?" Nick asked.

"I'm not sure," DuMont said. "But it looks like you'll have to be John Darby for a while longer."

"Oh, no," Jarrod said. "I went along with you tonight. I'm done being Darby."

"Whether I twist your arm at it or not, you know people around here are going to continue to take you for Darby, especially since he's disappeared," DuMont said. "All I want you to do is play along. Just introduce your brother here as your cousin and keep answering to Darby for a while longer."

"No," Jarrod said.

DuMont sighed. "We can talk about this at the station in the morning if you like."

"I have work to do in the morning."

"So do I, and I'm sorry, but it involves you."

"Look – " Nick started.

But DuMont held his hand up. "You're going to be taken for Darby. There's nothing you can do to avoid it. I or another officer will be tailing you everywhere tomorrow. Now, you can keep playing along and do it with a police presence behind you, or you can refuse and I'll pull the protection, but you're going to be taken for Darby. You're in this whether you want to be or not."

Jarrod knew he had to swallow this. "Do you expect this hit man to make contact tomorrow?"

"I don't know," DuMont said. "So far, I haven't found anybody who caught sight of anybody who might be him tonight, so we don't have any idea of where he is or what he's up to."

"You know what he looks like?" Nick asked.

"A rough idea only," DuMont said. "We just have never been able to get the goods on him."

"Why haven't you strong-armed him out of town?" Jarrod asked, disgusted with all the threats the police made against him but apparently would not use on the hit man.

DuMont said, "He's murdered men, but we can't prove it. We can't prove he took money to do it. Strong-arming him out of town is not what we want to do. We want to hang him or get him in prison for a long time, not pass him on to some other city's streets, and for that, Attorney Barkley, you know we need evidence."

Jarrod backed down off his anger. "You think he'll be back."

"He could resurface at any time, or not, but go along with us and we'll have you covered if he does. Keep that envelope of money on you, just in case he does."

"Great," Jarrod said. "I just love wandering around this town with a lot of money on me." He remembered the thousand dollars sewn into his coat too. He was loaded.

"Nobody will know," DuMont said.

Nick and Jarrod looked at each other. Even Nick's eyes said that Jarrod had little choice in this matter. "What about the real Darby?" Nick asked. "Has he turned up?"

DuMont shook his head. "Knowing Jack, he probably left town after he gave us the slip. Why he did that at this point, I don't know. Maybe it had something to do with our hit man catching wise to us. I don't know."

"You can never know what Darby's going to do or why," Jarrod said. "All right, I'll keep playing along for at least another day, but you know there are people in this town who know I'm not Darby, too. That might mess things up for you."

"We'll have to see," DuMont said. "It could be this is all over already. It could be our hit man has gone back underground and we'll have to think of some other way to get him. I don't know."

Jarrod and Nick gave each other looks again, and Nick finally just said, "I'm going to bed," and headed for his bedroom.

DuMont turned to leave. Reaching for the door, he said, "If anything turns chancy on you, just wave your hand over your head and a police officer will come to you."

Jarrod sighed as DuMont opened the door, and he took hold of the knob as DuMont went out. "I'm gonna want something in return for this," Jarrod said. "Like a free pass if my brother or I get into any legal trouble on this trip."

DuMont paused and smiled. "Were you planning to?"

"This is New Orleans," Jarrod said. That was all he needed to say.

DuMont said, "We'll see what we can do," and he left.

Jarrod closed the door behind him and stood there for a moment. Alone and in the quiet, he half cursed Darby again, but then let it go. He owned this project himself now, he knew. He couldn't blame Darby for it anymore, because he had made decisions himself. He glanced up at the closed door of Nick's bedroom, and he hoped he had made the right decisions for both of them.

Even though it wasn't like he'd ever had any real choice.