Wilderness Double Edition 22, page 23
Hobart was quick to slam the door and throw the bolt, and then to find his courage and shout, “If you ever set foot here again, I’ll shoot you on sight!”
Alain moved toward the street, his head bowed, muttering under his breath in French.
“What is it?” Zach asked, catching up. “Why are you so upset?”
“It is your sister, mon ami. Or to be more specific, the establishment where Mademoiselle Borke has taken her.”
“The Regal Club? What about it?” To Zach the name sounded respectable enough. “Have you been there?”
“Only once, and I vowed never to set foot over the threshold ever again.” Alain turned left at the gate. “There is no worse den of evil in all of New Orleans. The despicable vermin who owns it, Martin Vasklin, likes to put on airs and act the gentleman, but no one in the city is more despised.”
The name jarred Zach’s memory. “Vasklin, you say? I’ve run into him.” He related the incident at the Whiskers and Tails, and described the greasy man with the greasy hair.
“That is him, all right,” Alain confirmed. “Just to look at him makes one’s skin crawl.”
“What about this club of his? What goes on there?”
“You do not want to know,” Alain said. “It caters to the worst in human nature, to depraved desires and unspeakable longings. The front room is a gambling den where every card is marked and every wheel rigged. In the back rooms ...” Alain could not bring himself to finish.
Zach gripped the Creole by the shoulders. “Be truthful with me. I must know. Why would Athena Borke take my sister there? What would they do with a girl Evelyn’s age?”
Alain de Fortier grimaced. “Their depravity has no limits, I am afraid. There is nothing they would not do. Nothing at all.”
“You don’t mean ...?”
“Yes, my friend. I am afraid I most certainly do.”
Twelve
The Regal Club did not live up to its name. It was situated near the waterfront, in a part of New Orleans Alain de Fortier described as “a haunt of killers and thieves, a place no decent person would be caught dead at any hour of the night or the day.”
Zach’s fear for Evelyn had become a gnawing ache inside him. He could think of nothing but her, of what she might be going through. Grimly, he silently repeated his solemn promise to himself that the moment he came within reach of Athena Borke, she was dead.
The building that housed The Regal Club was like all the others on the block; squat and ugly, its walls speckled with grime, its windows dark pits covered by dirty curtains.
On the stoop lounged three toughs playing dice. One sneered and said, “What have we here? A half-breed? He’s not getting through the door.”
“Pardon, monsieur,” Alain said. “But he is with me and where I go, he goes. So would you care to step aside or be run through? The choice is yours.”
The tough had a knife but before he could pull it one of the others said, “Hold on. Mr. Vasklin wouldn’t like it. He knows this Creole.”
Dripping disdain, Alain marched past them. Zach started to follow but an arm was thrust in front of him.
“Guns aren’t permitted, breed. Your friend is well aware of that. Blades, yes. Firearms, no.”
Zach glanced at Alain, who scowled and nodded.
“We’ll watch over them,” the scalawag said. “Nothing will happen to them, and they are yours to take when you leave.”
“You can believe him,” Alain said. “It’s money they steal, not guns.”
Although loathe to part with them, Zach handed his rifle and pistols over. He kept the bowie. His back itched as he entered after Alain. The reek of liquor and other, less savory odors, was like a physical punch to the gut. On the wall was a sign: MEMBERS ONLY.
“Pay it no heed,” Alain said. “Vasklin put it up because it makes him think he is someone special when he is not. He has long entertained pretensions of being a gentleman but all he will ever be is a blackguard.”
The place was a cave. Only a few lamps were lit, and those strategically placed as to render most of the tables and the bar half in shadow. Zach felt as if he had just entered a den of grizzlies. Or perhaps wolves would be more appropriate. Many of the stares cast his way were filled with the familiar taint of bigotry. He held his head high and met each coldly.
It was one o’clock in the morning but the club was packed. Every foot of floor space was crammed, the bar was four deep. Games of chance were underway. Some players were bucking the tiger. Others were engrossed in poker. Clouds of cigar smoke wreathed the ceiling, stray tendrils twisting and curling as if they were alive.
Despite all the people, the place was uncommonly quiet. These were not the festive, carefree patrons from Kitty’s. These were hard men and hard women whose capacity for laughter had long since died. These were predators to whom life was a continual struggle for survival, and to whom a game of chance might mean the difference between their next meal and going hungry. They trusted no one, they cared for few.
Alain’s expression was as somber as those around him, yet he stood out from them as the sun stood out from the moon. His expensive clothes, his air of sophistication, were as out of place as a bowl of fine china on a table of crude clay crockery.
A painted woman came up to him, her lips as red as strawberries, her dress as tight as skin. Clinging to his shoulder, she whispered in Alain’s ear. Alain shook his head and sought to move on but she pulled at his jacket, and suddenly he had her by the throat and was twisting her left wrist to force her to release the poke she had
slipped from his pocket. He did not say anything. Neither did she. When she let go, he pushed her, and she sniffed as if insulted and flounced off in search of an easier victim.
“How did you know?” Zach asked. “Did you feel her take it?”
“I did not have to,” Alain said. “As much as it shames me to admit it, I am as much at home in a den of iniquity like this as I would be in the most elegant parlor. Much of my life has been grossly misspent, my friend.”
Zach was searching for Athena Borke. It was too much to expect her to be there after so many hours had gone by, unless she was in one of the back rooms. He saw a door at the rear and was about to make for it when out from among the wolves stepped a weasel.
Martin Vasklin’s swarthy features were a mirror of all that was corrupt and vicious in human beings. His greased hair, his slick mustache, his tailored clothes could not disguise his vile nature. “Well, well, well. As I live and breathe. If it isn’t Alain de Fortier.”
“Monsieur Vasklin,” the Creole said.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you say you would never set foot in my club again?” Vasklin taunted. “That it was beneath your dignity to – how did you put it?” Vasklin snapped his fingers. “Ah, yes. It was beneath your dignity to associate with riffraff.”
“I am here on my friend’s behalf,” Alain said. “Otherwise I would not have graced your doorstep.”
“Is this business or pleasure?”
“It is of great personal importance,” said Alain.
“Oh really?” Vasklin raked Zach from head to toe with a look of poorly concealed contempt. “Part Indian, is he not? And you really must tell me who his tailor is. Only country bumpkins come into the city in buckskins these days.” Vasklin’s forehead knit. “Wait a minute. I know him from somewhere. But where?”
Zach hoped Vasklin had not had a good look at his face at Whiskers and Tails. It had all happened so fast, and he had been wearing the white jacket and pants of the kitchen staff, that maybe Vasklin wouldn’t remember. But he should have known better. No one ever forgot someone who slugged them on the jaw.
“I remember now! You’re the bastard who hit me! The lout who interrupted our card game, and Kitty had thrown out.”
“You hit him?” Alain said.
“He wouldn’t keep his hands to himself,” Zach explained.
Martin Vasklin’s slick mustache was twitching. “You are a fool to come here. No one lays a hand on me and lives to brag of it.”
Alain stepped between them. “Strike him and you must deal with me. He is under my protection.”
Zach was well able to take care of himself and was set to say so but the Creole’s comment dampened some of Vasklin’s anger.
“Very well. I can demand satisfaction later. But make no mistake. I will have it, one way or the other, as is my right as a gentleman.”
“We would like to talk in private,” Alain said. “Is there any chance we can go to your office?”
“Why not?” Vasklin snapped his fingers and two underlings fell into step in front and in back of them. “Follow me.”
Alain leaned toward Zach to whisper, “Be careful, mon ami. Our host does not have a forgiving bone in his body. He will strike at you when you least expect, so above all, do not turn your back to him.”
“I won’t,” Zach said. “But what about Evelyn? Shouldn’t we search the back rooms before we do anything else?”
“Bear with me a few minutes,” Alain said quietly. “I know this scoundrel better than you. If we demand the right to search the premises, he will refuse. We must trick him into thinking it is his idea.”
Zach decided to let the Creole handle things, provided it did not take too long. He could not stand the idea that Evelyn might be so close he could practically reach out and touch her.
Vasklin ushered them down a murky hall and into a room with a cluttered desk and several cheap chairs. Opening an oaken cabinet, he took out a bottle of whiskey and three glasses and set them on the desk. Only after he had filled them halfway and given one to each of them did he sink into the chair, take a long sip, and sigh. “Now then, Fortier. Tell me more about the reason for your visit.”
“As I told you,” Alain said, with a nod at Zach, “it is on his behalf. This is his first visit to our fair city and he would like to enjoy our varied entertainments.”
“So take him to the theater or to Le Grande,” Vasklin suggested. “I hear that is where you spend most of your time these days.”
“They do not offer quite the same type of entertainment you do. You know the kind I mean.” Alain grinned and winked.
Vasklin pretended not to understand. “No, I don’t. Why don’t you spell it out for me?”
Zach could see he was doing it on purpose to make de Fortier uncomfortable.
“I can speak for myself,” he interjected, but Alain held up a hand.
“No, that is quite all right, mon ami. If Monsieur Vasklin takes perverse delight in having me talk about such things, then, as his guests, we will oblige him.” Alain’s eyes glittered like twin pieces of quartz. “My friend here is, as you rightly observed, part Indian. His people have tastes more in keeping with your own than with mine.”
It was a bald-faced lie but Vasklin was too ignorant to realize it, and inwardly Zach chuckled.
“Be more specific.” Zach could tell that Vasklin took pleasure from making Alain give the details.
“Everyone knows that certain carnal delights can only be found under your roof. No one else dares offer them. In that respect you are truly in a class by yourself.”
“True. And do you know why that is? It is not because I am a shrewder businessman, although I am undeniably shrewd. It is not because I am less afraid of the law, although, yes, my courage has never been questioned. No, it is because I am the only person in New Orleans who scoffs at the morals of the masses. The only person who is not afraid of God.”
“Now it is you who must be more specific,” Alain said. Vasklin was enjoying himself. “Let us take Kitty as an example. Her house of delights is famed throughout the city and the state. She offers girls in all shapes and sizes. But none younger than sixteen. And why? Because there is a moral line she will not cross. But not me. I cross any moral line because I have no morals. And do you know why I don’t?”
Neither Zach nor Alain responded.
“I have no morals because I do not believe there is a God who enforces some silly moral code by which we all must live. Life is what it is and we are who we are and that is all there is to it.”
“I refuse to accept that,” Alain said.
“Naturally. You are as misguided as everyone else. But once you look at the world through my eyes, once you see God for the fiction He is, a whole new world opens up to you. A world where you can do whatever you please. Where there is no right or wrong but only what is best for you at any given moment.”
“I must confess, Martin, that you ponder things more deeply than I ever gave you credit for,” Alain said. “But the fact remains I could not disagree more.”
Vasklin shrugged. “No one expects you to agree, least of all me.” He shifted his attention to Zach. “Now then. Exactly what kind of entertainment do you seek, half-breed?
Alain answered instead. “Young girls are his fancy.”
“Really? I had no idea Indians went in for that sort of thing. You learn something new every day.” Vasklin paused. “But you have come to the right place. I have the youngest under my roof you will find anywhere.”
Zach wondered if it was as hard for Alain to mask his loathing as it was for him. He would dearly love to draw his bowie and turn Martin Vasklin’s neck into a fountain. “May I see them? I would like to pick the one I want.”
“Of course, of course. The customer always gets to choose,” Vasklin said, and rose. “Come with me and I will show off my little princesses.” He polished off his whiskey and smacked the glass down on the desk.
His heart hammering, Zach followed Vasklin down the hall to a room on the left. The only item of furniture was a bed, and seated at one end, combing her hair, was a girl dressed much as the women out in the club.
“This is Ardeth,” Vasklin said. “For a hundred dollars you can spend an hour with her doing whatever you like.”
“She does not interest me,” Zach said, unable to look her in the eyes.
“Her hair is too light? Is that it? You must prefer girls with hair the color of your own. Come then. I have just the one.”
A different room, a different bed, a different girl, no more than a child, but this time with long black hair, her eyes twenty years older than they should be.
“This is Daphne,” Vasklin introduced her. “She is as experienced as they come. She costs fifty dollars more an hour but it is money wisely spent.” He laughed lecherously. “What do you say?”
Zach turned away. “She does not suit me, either.”
A third room, a third girl, a girl who looked enough like Evelyn to cause Zach’s throat to constrict and his temperature to rise. “Enough of this,” he said. There was only so much he could stand.
“What is wrong?” Vasklin asked, genuinely puzzled.
“I am looking for my sister,” Zach revealed, “and I have reason to believe she is here.”
“Oh really?” Vasklin glanced at the four men who had followed them and the quartet produced pistols from under their clothes.
Zach might have leaped at him if not for Alain de Fortier, who seized his arm and whispered in his ear, “Non! Non! Now is not the time.”
Vasklin had his hands on his hips. “So it’s not entertainment you desire, after all. I treated you cordially and you deceived me. Very well.” He pointed toward the club. “My men will escort you off the premises. Never set foot in here again if you know what is good for you.” Vasklin turned to Alain. “The only reason I don’t kill the two of you where you stand is because you have many friends in high places who might take it into their heads to come after me, and I never court trouble when it can be avoided.”
Zach was a volcano on the verge of erupting. Somehow he controlled himself until they were outside and he had been given his guns, but the moment he had them, he whirled to charge back in.
“Be sensible,” Alain cautioned, pushing him toward the corner of the block. “You would not get past the first table.”
“Evelyn might be in there!” Zach fumed.
“I know, I know. But this is more than the two of us can handle. What we need are allies, and I know exactly where to find them.”
Thirteen
It was close to two in the morning when they arrived at Whiskers and Tails, which pulsed with light and sound. At a question from Zach, Alain de Fortier replied, “No, the city never sleeps. Many are night creatures who rarely set foot outdoors until after the sun has gone down. I know, because I am one of them.”
James and his father were at their posts, their uniforms starched and immaculate. The father smiled at the Creole and said warmly, “Mr. de Fortier, what a pleasure to see you again.” His smile faded. “But the gentleman with you, I am sorry to say, can’t be admitted. It would cost us our jobs.”
“Fetch your mistress, Franklyn,” Alain requested. “She and I must have words.”
Fifteen minutes later, out sashayed Kitty, as dazzling as a rainbow. Her manner was reserved. “While I am I am not so pleased by the company you keep. He sows chaos like a hurricane. To say nothing of the dog he killed.”
“Dog?” Alain said, and glanced at Zach in reproach. “You said nothing about any dog.” Then, smiling, he placed a hand on Miss Kitty’s arm. “But since when have you held grudges, lovely one? My friend regrets it, I am sure, and once you hear his sad tale, perhaps you will think more favorably of him.” He recited all that Zach had told him about Evelyn’s abduction, ending with, “And there you have it, mademoiselle. Are you still upset with him?
“I won’t excuse the dog, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Kitty said. “But I don’t hold his behavior against him, either. I rescind my order. Your friend may come in. But be advised: If this is a ruse, I will banish the both of you for life.”
“Ma Cherie,” Alain said, bowing and kissing her hand. “You wound me to the quick. I would as soon lose an arm or leg as risk losing your friendship. Haven’t I ever mentioned how your beauty has inspired many a dream I dare not repeat?”
