had disappeared. He couldn’t take a chance on passing Tony at the door. His only option was to search in the opposite direction—toward the far end of Bourbon Street where the lights were lower and the crowds were thinner.
He thought he’d lost the pair. But his luck held and he caught a glimpse of the happy couple just turning the corner.
Probably the guy wouldn’t realize he was being followed. But the woman might catch on. Playing safe, Alex hung back, watching them make for a sprawling stucco building with Ionic columns holding up a small portico in front. When they disappeared inside, he hugged the shadows across the street and strolled past, looking at the name above the door. The McDonough Club.
He blinked, thinking he’d read it wrong. But the words stayed the same.
He’d heard of the place. It was an old and distinguished men’s club, named after one of the city’s benefactors. Could the working girl really be planning to take her date here?
Well, they’d gone inside. He’d report that at the morning meeting and check out the vital statistics on the club.
Meanwhile he’d better get back before he lost his job.
By sprinting all the way, he arrived at the alley door of the bar about ten minutes after he’d left. Ducking into the men’s room, he took a couple of deep breaths and washed his hands. When he glanced at his watch he saw that it was half past midnight. In a couple of hours he could go home and catch a little sleep. Then it was on to his other assignment—playing truck driver.
Jack gave him a dirty look when he returned. But he pretended to be oblivious.
He was hoping that the rest of the evening would be less eventful. But no such luck. Twenty minutes later, as he drew another draft of beer, his attention zinged to the front door when three dark Latino men swaggered into the bar. All of them were large and muscular, with slicked-down black hair, new jeans and dark T-shirts. Actually, Alex was surprised when Tony stepped aside and let them in, since they looked like trouble.
They took a table in the back, speaking Spanish and acting as though they owned the place. As he glanced at them from time to time, Alex began making connections. They looked as if they could be some of the Nilia rebels due to arrive in town.
The rebels were the reason the Department of Public Safety had opened this new branch of Confidential in New Orleans in the first place. Their leader, Ricardo Gonzalez, aka “Black Death,” was bent on overthrowing the government of a country that reminded Alex a lot of Venezuela. Gonzalez wanted to squelch the peaceful democracy that existed there and grab the considerable oil resources. And he was willing to use any means at his disposal, including wiping out whole villages to make an example of them.
CIA agents who had been in-country following his movements had discovered that a group of Gonzalez’s men was headed toward New Orleans.
Alex watched them without being obvious. He’d heard that everyone who worked for Gonzalez had a scorpion tattooed on his upper body. If he tore the shirt off one of them, would he find the mark?
He was pretty sure there wasn’t much chance of undressing any of them in here. He saw that Rich Stewart had drifted into the bar and was glad the other agent was keeping tabs on the action, since the newcomers’ behavior was definitely something to worry about. Looking up, he saw one of them deliberately bump his chair into that of another patron, apparently for the sheer pleasure of seeing if he could start a fight.
The other guy moved out of the way, and the group went back to their drinks—until one of them made eye contact with a blond coed. When she smiled at him, he made a spontaneous decision that he was going to separate her from her boyfriend.
Clearing a path through the bar, he moved in on the kids, leaning over the girl with his big hand on her shoulder and his fingers coming down over her breast.
Rich and Alex exchanged glances. Rich edged a little closer to the group, but stayed out of their way.
With the noise level in the room, it was impossible for Alex to hear anything that was being said. Still, it was obvious that the college boy was mad as hell—but also afraid to tangle with the hulking Hispanic.
Alex clenched his fist around the spout of the soda and soft drink dispenser, wishing that he could help the kid out. But he’d already called enough attention to himself for one night.
The other members of the macho group sat back, enjoying the fun, laughing among themselves. But just as their amigo was about to chew the kid up and spit him out, the others mercifully stepped in to drag their cohort out of the bar. And Alex breathed out a little sigh. Disaster averted, and he hadn’t even stuck his nose into it.
He glanced up, seeing Rich give a small nod before following them into the street. Mason stayed where he was. Over the past few days Alex was getting the impression that his specialty was avoiding trouble.
Alex spent the next half hour tending bar and feeling almost like he was on break.
But his antenna went up when another prostitute walked through the door. She’d picked a slow time, which immediately made him think she was one of the police recruits getting some training when there wouldn’t be too much chance of fending off propositions.
She was wearing a lot of makeup, but as she stood inside the door scanning the room, Alex got a good look at her face.
His heart clunked inside his chest, then started up a rapid beat that made it hard to breathe.
The prostitute was Gillian Seymour. He’d know that fiery redhead anywhere, even dressed in a low-cut blouse, a miniskirt that barely covered her crotch, fishnet stockings and little black boots.
While he’d still been with the N.O.P.D., he and Gillian had dated. Well, that was a pretty mild word for the torrid affair that had rocketed to life between them.
Truthfully, she’d been the best thing in his life at the time. But even as the two of them had driven each other to ecstasy in bed, he’d known that he was no good for her. So he’d broken it off.
For a painful second he allowed himself to envy his boss. Conrad Burke was married to a wonderful woman named Marilyn whom he’d met on one of his previous assignments. They were raising a set of twins—a boy and a girl. That was the way life was supposed to be. A man and a woman fell in love, settled down and raised a family.
Unfortunately it hadn’t been that way with his own parents. Mom and Dad had each been married five times. Alex was their oldest kid. The one who’d been born while they weren’t hitched to anyone. And he couldn’t even keep up with all the stepsisters and brothers from the various unions—the shortest of which had lasted four months.
As a kid, he’d been shuffled from one parent to the next and back again—often feeling like he’d gotten lost in the cracks of his parents’ new relationships.
And he’d vowed never to do that to a child of his own. He knew he wasn’t a suitable candidate for marriage. It just wasn’t in his genes. So he’d always kept his dealings with the fair sex superficial.
Which was what had scared him about Gillian. He’d wanted her on a level that he wasn’t prepared to accept—which had finally sent him running in the other direction.
But in the two years since breaking off the affair he’d thought of her often. And when he’d heard she’d entered the police academy, he’d
