don’t we, dear?” Ruza patted Casmir’s hand, then eyed her daughter’s scarf. “Is that a Naubow?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so. There is nothing that compares with French silk. And these colors…they’re so vibrant. You really do look good in saguaro green and salmon. You should wear them more often.”
“What did you pack, Mama?”
“Not what I would have liked. With only one good eye to guide me through my wardrobe, I fear we’ll have to do some major shopping right away.”
From what Polax had told her, shopping was going to be a bit of a problem. How to tell Mama they were headed for the swamp, their babysitter a snake named Mr. Asshole?
Casmir continued to contemplate, then decided to hold off. Something ingenious would surely come to her in the next few hours.
Mama believed that Quest was an international real estate agency. Casmir would never have considered lying to her mother if she had thought she could handle the truth. But there was no way Mama would have understood. Her first question would have been, “Is it dangerous?”
After all, she was the offspring of Madame Ruza, a retired stage actress who ate fruit and salad to keep herself trim, and visited the beauty salon for a manicure and pedicure weekly. She enjoyed grand parties and sipping martinis dressed in negligees trimmed in fur with matching satin bedroom slippers.
College had bored her, and her runway modeling career had grown stale. But she had honestly never been bored a day in the five years since she’d worked for Quest. She’d come to accept that her present life had been one of those fated twists in the road. Who would have guessed she’d become a spy the day she had bumped into Polax on the street?
“On this trip I’m going to be inspecting a number of properties for an interested client,” Casmir began. “Property in Louisiana.”
“We’re going to the U.S.?”
“Yes. Louisiana.”
“There’s this decadent place there that I’ve read about. It’s called New Orleans. Wouldn’t it be grand to go there?”
“We’re flying into New Orleans.”
“Oh, this is so exciting.”
“Le Mystère,” Casmir added. “The place where we’ll be staying is called Le Mystère. I think it’s farther south.”
Pierce flew into New Orleans, then rented an open Jeep. The city brought back memories, and he found himself driving by the Glitterbug. He’d been a bartender there during his lean and mean years. Later, when Saber Lazie had felt he was ready, he’d graduated to the underground game room where real money could be made.
A den of muscle, guts and killer instincts, was how Saber had described the place when he’d first opened the door and Pierce had gotten his initial look at what Lazie’s twisted mind had designed below the Glitterbug.
After a few lessons from the master himself, he had stepped into a world that quickly separated the men from the boys. Before long he’d made a name for himself, and enough money to buy some land and build a cabin. A money-making job and regular meals—it was perfect for someone like him.
Then he’d met Merrick. The Onyxx commander had been seated in the front row one night. He’d sat at a table alone, his eyes never leaving the action. Days earlier Pierce had agreed to a high-stakes knife fight with a muscle-honed giant named Frog.
The win had been one of his toughest, but he’d managed to stay on his feet, and eventually become the winner of five thousand dollars.
The victory had put him at Merrick’s table hours later. The commander of Onyxx had bought him a drink, then laid his cards on the table. He said Pierce was a desirable candidate for a government special-ops team. He’d complimented him on his skill and survival techniques, saying that he was one of the best he’d seen anywhere, and that he’d been everywhere, so he should know. That there was a place for men like him.
The truth was Pierce had always felt alone, that there would never be a place for a man like him. But here was a stranger telling him he had value.
Merrick had sweetened the deal with a money figure that Pierce couldn’t have made in his entire lifetime. And so he had become one of Merrick’s boys. A man of purpose, one of the elite at Onyxx.
He didn’t stop in the Glitterbug, but he saw that it looked the same as it always had from the outside—a simple hole-in-the-wall bar, complete with strippers and loud music. It was a lucrative business for Saber Lazie, but he’d made his real fortune arranging fights underground.
The door was open, as always, welcoming the regulars and the curious. But few knew about Lazie’s exotic other world, or how much money changed hands in one night.
He glanced at the files in the seat beside him, still skeptical about the job. Bodyguard with a twist… This was a twisted mess, all right. Merrick hadn’t been kidding when he detailed the plan that he and Polax had come up with. He was supposed to keep Balasi hip-huggingly close until Petrov took the bait.
He wanted to put off his face-to-face meeting with her as long as he could, so he’d called Lazie to talk over the situation. Even though he was in New Orleans and could have picked up his cargo at the airport, he had persuaded his old friend to do the honors.
Besides, he had some catching up to do. There was someone he wanted to see in Le Mystère first. It had been four years since he’d seen sweet, generous Linet at the Ginger Root.
Lazie said she still worked behind the bar, serving beer with a smile. Keeping that picture in his mind, he headed south, bypassed Chalmette and followed the river.
He took Highway 39 to Scarsdale, then Stella. Thirty minutes later he cruised into Le Mystère. The main street was quiet, as usual, with two cars parked in front of Pete’s Grocery, one in front of Wanda’s Catfish Lounge and nine in front of the Ginger Root Bar.
Linet must be working, Pierce thought as he swung into the bar’s dirt-packed parking lot and hopped out. He hoped that Linet would be happy to see him. It would make his stay in Le Mystère more enjoyable if he had a little diversion from time to time. A small black-haired distraction with green eyes, and a set of wanna-touch-me breasts that had kept the bar stools at the Root covered from dawn until dusk for the past twelve years.
It was a known fact that some of the boys staked out a bar stool early and stayed all day and all night just to be on the receiving end of one of Linet’s boob-a-licious smiles.
Today Pierce planned to be one of the boys. He needed to get into the right frame of mind to face hell in heels.
It would take at least a dozen beers, maybe more.
It was said a man’s worth was measured by degrees of talent, skill and determination. Yurii Petrov had been born with a full glass of all three.
Once a simple Caucasian peasant from the mountains of Armenia, he’d first found his calling with the Russian Mafia. As a member of the family he’d fit the mold like a well-made shoe.
His penchant for detail and his gut-driven loyalty had sent him climbing the ladder quickly. And for
