"And choices,” Daddy warned in closing, his voice grown ominously quiet, “can be sublime or lethal."

  * * * *

  Neal Maitland steered his rattletrap Pontiac between stone gateposts topped by fluted urns. A bored guard waved him past the gatehouse, and Maitland parked on the slate cul-de-sac in front of a massive Greek Revival.

  He followed a crushed oyster-shell footpath that led to a service entrance around back near the kitchen extension. The brittle light of late afternoon was starting to take on that mellow richness just before sunset. Even here, in the heart of the magnolia-scented Garden District, Maitland could whiff the necrotic hint that permeated New Orleans long before Katrina.

  The service entrance, under the rear veranda, remained unlocked during the day. Maitland let himself in, trying to ignore the loss-of-gravity tickle that had been gathering in his stomach since yesterday, when Daddy Mention had blindsided him with that sudden, sly, accusing stare.

  A narrow, oak-floored hallway, illuminated by bulbs in brass wall sconces, extended almost the full length of the house. Doors opened off both sides, and a doorless archway at the far end, hung with needlework curtains, led to Daddy Mention's private little Inner Sanctum. Maitland knew that Daddy, a creature of habit, would be relaxing there now, enjoying a glass of burgundy.

  But he stopped well short of the study, spearing his fingers through his hair before rapping lightly on one of the side doors midway down the hall. It swung open immediately, and Arlette tugged him quickly over the threshold into a cramped storage room reeking of camphor.

  They kissed with the furtive, body-melding hunger of illicit lovers forced to take their pleasure in broken doses.

  "I'm getting scared, Neal,” Arlette said when they came up for air. “I think he suspects about us."

  "He doesn't know jack,” Maitland insisted despite his own unease. “We've been careful. He's just got you spooked with all that ‘third eye’ doo-dah."

  "It's not that. You don't know him like I do. I've been handling his legal matters for years now. Bertrand could follow anyone into a revolving door and come out ahead. You just be careful when you go see him."

  The only light in the windowless room spilled from a naked bulb suspended from the ceiling on a string. But Arlette, just returned from some social function, still wore her hair in a braided coil at the nape; she looked stunning in pearls and a black knit dress that bared her shoulders. The thirty-year-old attorney had given up her practice in tax law when she married Daddy Mention and took over management of his financial empire.

  "Don't worry,” Maitland replied. “My motto is Semper Gumby—always flexible. Everything hinges on what he says at this meeting. I've crossed swords with him before about money. But this is his last chance. Speaking of which—you're sure about that ... information you gave me?"

  She nodded. “That's where it pays to know the law, cabana boy. In Louisiana no coroner's inquest or autopsy is required when someone under long-term doctor's care dies, unless something looks suspicious. An autopsy can be requested by the next of kin, but that's me. Dr. Charbonnet has been tending to Bertrand for nearly ten years and knows how weak he is. Nor is he the suspicious type."

  Maitland rubbed the point of his chin, weighing each word. “But it must be any doctor's duty to look for something fishy?"

  "I researched it thoroughly. Before any dead body is removed, the responding medical examiner makes a routine visual inspection. Poisons can leave visual clues like cyanosis, just as strangulation leaves an obvious ligature. But suffocation leaves no external clues. Just some tiny broken blood vessels that show only when the upper lip is cut and extended back during an autopsy. I'll simply forego the optional autopsy when Charbonnet comes out to certify death. It's all legal and quite common."

  Maitland nodded. Personally, he would prefer the simplicity of a .45, a reliable knock-down gun that usually killed with one shot no matter where the bullet struck its victim. But given Daddy Mention's celebrity status, if he were murdered the law would be all over it like heat rash. Better that he die of “natural causes."

  "Well, let's hope we won't have to risk it, cupcake,” Maitland said, kissing her again. “That old bastard owes me. I worked out the original grift that made him what he is today. All he has to do is cut me in for a decent percentage of the gate. Then, once it's all down in legal ink, you can afford to tell him about us."

  Her voice took on a scalpel edge at odds with her entreating gaze and the oval sweetness of her face. “You're hoping for a square deal from Bertrand? You'd have better luck trying to bite your own teeth."

  "In that case, it's his funeral. We'll know in a few minutes."

  "Be careful,” she threw after him in an urgent whisper as he slipped out into the hallway again.

  * * * *

  "Actually, Neal, I'm quite proud of you for finally standing up to me like this. Nowadays we are all trained to be cowards. Most have replaced their backbones with wishbones. But you have finally risen up from the steaming dung heap to proclaim your worth. Bravo! The man with the caviar face has finally cast off his pizza tastes."

  Daddy Mention was negligently sprawled in the soft leather chair behind his desk. Fabrics in a sun-bleached palette covered the furnishings of his favorite room, with brocade drapes soft-lensing the last of the day's sunlight. The wall behind him featured a huge sandalwood carving of Ganesh, the Hindu god of success.

  Maitland perched on one of the wide windowsills, trying unsuccessfully not to contrast all this luxury to his own rented room on Magazine Street, rendered functional and tasteless by mass-produced furnishings. Anger-warmth flushed his neck and face. All your life, this room accused him, you've been somebody's man, a tool of power but never powerful yourself.

  But those days are over, he resolved again, feeling his will clench like a fist.

  As if seizing his very thoughts, Daddy spoke up. “The gods have persecuted you since birth, is that it, Neal? So now you figure it's your turn to ladle off some of the cream?"

  Feeling trapped by his employer's goading stare, Maitland averted his eyes. “Never mind the gods. What about a partnership arrangement?"

  "A partnership?” Daddy's tone ridiculed the word. He gave a harsh bark of laughter before shrewdness seeped into his eyes. “The ass waggeth his ears. I'm the rainmaker. You're merely day labor, my friend, remember that."

  "Yeah, now I'm day labor. But I was night labor before, remember? Back when I built up your entire phony rep."

  Daddy gave a fluming snort. “Nothing ruins truth like stretching it."

  "Then you tell me how I'm lying."

  "Let's just say your memory has a penchant for melodramatic embroideries."

  "No, let's just say you're so full of crap your feet are sliding! I was the one who broke into all those Uptown mansions and cars. It was me who planted the mics that gave you all the inside information you needed to snow them big time with your ‘third eye.’ Who pulled your bacon out of the fire when that prof from New York was on the verge of exposing your methods in the national media? Don't ever forget: When I met you, you were a two-bit palm reader working out of a cardboard stall."

  Maitland pointed toward a shell-covered hutch in the corner behind Daddy. It contained a growing number of small birchwood boxes exactly like the one Daddy had displayed yesterday. Each box was labeled with the name of someone living or recently deceased, and each contained a lock of the person's hair, a speck of their dried blood, some nail clippings. When the right secret words were spoken over them, Daddy claimed, a spark of the human soul entered the box and did not die with its human body. The True Believers paid exorbitant fees so that Daddy could keep them in touch with their loved ones “Over There.” He had them convinced he need only hold the box next to his heart to receive messages from the departed.

  "And now?” Maitland continued, acid etching each syllable. “Now you're a ‘soul keeper.’ Running a profitable psychic message service between rich fools and the dead. ‘I hear messages.’ Yeah, and Stone Boy kicked a lot of bullshit around!"

  Daddy's expressive lips twitched with amusement. “Much like a neutered dog, you just don't get it, do you? This is New Orleans, cher! Truth is whatever you want it to be.” Daddy shrugged. “So that's what I sell—whatever the suckers want to hear. I am the greatest auctioneer of all, accepting bids on immortality. It's purely business, Neal. As for your impertinent demands..."

  Daddy rolled the stem of his wineglass between thumb and forefinger as he studied the younger man with a gaze forged of distaste and forbearance.

  "...I believe it was Dostoyevsky who defined man as ‘a creature who walks on two legs and is ungrateful.’ You don't live in my pocket. If you don't like the way you're treated, find the door. I can call Manpower and replace you in five minutes. You've become my hair shirt, Neal, and I'm tired of the chafing."

  Maitland's muscles went warm and weak with anger. Daddy, unfazed, pressed quickly ahead, his tone yielding to his evident disgust at the sight before him.

  "Look at you. Big, buff bad boy, shoulders broad as a yoke, pumps iron and jogs. But despite your superior abs and lats you'll never be the alpha male. And do you know why, pretty boy? Because all your big ideas are filtered through longing, not logic. You think that, because you're not a play-the-crowd pimp like me, you're somehow superior. But you're a worm, a scrag-end nothing."

  Maitland steeled his muscles, rage accelerating his pulse so much he could feel it throbbing hotly in his palms.

  "You lump of sewer slime,” he said in a toneless voice, still numb from the barrage of insults.

  "Why, Neal!” Daddy protested, resorting to the magisterial tone that always irked Maitland. He pointed his chin toward the hutch in the corner. “Don't you know it's rude to visit Rome and insult the Pope? I am caretaker of these human souls. Show some respect."

  "So what you're telling me is, either I suck it up or I split?"

  "The way you say. After all, I've employed you for, what, ten years now? Taught you many tricks of the trade and introduced you to high society. Yet you shamelessly tup my wife, eh, slyboots?"

  The question sideswiped Maitland. Daddy's eyes puckered with satisfaction when the other man's face flushed brick red.

  "Ah-hah! Here are casements flung open!” Daddy baited him with his smile. “Come now, Neal, we're both men of the world. I know that my little angel's halo is a strap-on model. And you've been loosening the strap."

  Beyond the windows, day had bled into night. Maitland said nothing, only watching the ivory scimitar of moon visible through the live oaks.

  Daddy's big nose wrinkled at the bridge when he laughed. “We seem to be ‘at daggers drawn,’ as the novelists say. Well, as to your grievance: Everyone is rattling litigation sabers these days. Why not just sue me, Neal? And as for my wife..."

  Daddy spread his perfectly manicured hands in a gesture of Gallic tolerance. “Oh, she's a seraph-faced beauty, all right, and who could blame a young farmer's bull like you for mounting her? Besides..."

  He picked up a vial of nitroglycerin pills and rattled them. “With my ailing pump, I can't ‘roger her roundly’ as you can. But I know Arlette's impressive mind as well as you know her impressive body. It's true she has turned to you for the pleasures of the marital couch that I can no longer provide. However, she prefers men who can deal with a sommelier and quote Proust. You, in glaring contrast, are a muscle-bound schlemiel who chills red wine."

  Maitland pushed away from the windowsill and headed toward the door. “I quit."

  "Fine, good luck paddling your own canoe,” Daddy called out cheerfully behind him. “But a deserter never sleeps—keep that in mind."

  Maitland halted on the threshold and turned slowly around. “Meaning what?"

  Daddy's gray gaze was soulless and unwavering. “Meaning I've left you in a dirty corner, and naturally you'll stew on it until you want revenge. But I warn you now, Neal: I have carefully preserved the evidence required to link you to the murder of Professor Barry Skinner. So let's not be too ... precipitate, eh, in our vengeful actions? Such as any ‘leakage’ to the media about my methods?"

  "Evidence? You're running a bluff."

  "Am I? With your usual sloppiness, you took too long in disposing of the murder weapon. I switched forty-fives on you. The one you tossed off the GNO bridge was clean. The one I have tucked away is registered to you, and it's far too late to report it stolen."

  Maitland saw Daddy slide his right hand into the top drawer of the desk, where he kept an old Webley revolver.

  "Switched forty-fives?” Maitland repeated when he could trust his voice again. “You're telling me you'd ... ?"

  "Relax. Cop a plea and you're free in fifteen years.” Daddy smiled and added: “My wife's an attorney, you know. I'm sure that's what she'd advise."

  Maitland's voice hoarsened. “I saved everything you own when I killed him, you lowlife—"

  "It's always bothered me, Neal,” Daddy cut him off in a bored tone, “when big, tough men like you pour out their guts without shame. Go cry on Oprah."

  Maitland stood rooted in the doorway, visceral anger making him tremble like a rain-soaked kitten.

  "Don't be too hard on yourself,” Daddy suggested with false unction. “After all, they say the last true man of action was Napoleon. Good night, Neal, and goodbye."

  When Maitland still hesitated, Daddy slid the desk drawer open a few more inches for emphasis. “I take it you're not bolted to the floor?"

  Maitland left without saying another word. Even before he reached his car, a calm sense of purpose had replaced his anger. He'd be back that very night. There was no gate sentry after dark, only the home-security system, and Arlette had already given him the code to disarm that.

  It would be done her way now.

  * * * *

  Daddy Mention had fallen asleep without turning back the bedding. He lay sprawled on his back atop a magenta quilt with a grapevine border. His usual nightcap of creme de cacao sat half finished on a nightstand beside the bed.

  Maitland, gripping a pillow, stood over the sleeping man, noticing how ragged and uneven Daddy's breathing was. Arlette was right: Not only would this be easier than snuffing out a candle, but no red flags would go up when a man this old and ill died in his sleep.

  A balcony door stood ajar, and a humid breeze nudged the curtains into motion. Moonwash seeped in through the slatted jalousies and splashed across Daddy's face. Maitland nudged him. “Lagasse?"

  Daddy's eyelids quivered open. Still groggy with sleep fumes, he didn't at first register the husky whisper or the sight of his employee standing over him with a pillow at the ready. Maitland waited until a spark of panicked understanding gleamed in those atavistic eyes, and then he smothered that hateful face until the choking noises ceased.

  "The will is going to sail through probate,” Arlette predicted, keeping her voice just above a whisper. “Even with Daddy gone, I can unload Third Eye Enterprises for at least forty million. I'll spend a few weeks playing the proper widow, then we'll fly off to Vegas. So wipe that nervous frown off your face and quit pacing like a caged animal."

  The two of them occupied a side parlor featuring an original Hotchkiss upright and slender-legged tables topped by Tiffany and Waterford crystal lamps. Maitland swept aside several fussy little pillows with lace ruffles and sat at the opposite end of the sofa from Arlette. He glanced toward a walnut staircase leading to the second floor.

  "Then why are they taking so long up there?” he fretted.

  "They're not. Now quit acting like the nervous perp in a Poe story. You're my bodyguard now, so just act detached and bored like a good macho."

  "Easy for you to say. What if Daddy really left my gun with his lawyer—"

  "I'm his lawyer, remember? I told you the gun story was pure bluff, he told me so himself. Keeping it would have made him an accessory to murder."

  "Yeah, it would, wouldn't it?” Maitland said, feeling some of the weight lift from his chest. “And if—"

  "Shush it,” she warned in a whisper, glancing toward the stairs.

  Hushed voices approached them as two men slowly descended. Maitland watched them, pausing on the feather edge of his next breath. Dr. Romer Charbonnet was well into his sixties, with watery blue eyes and rumpled white hair. Maitland didn't know the younger Asian man with him, but Arlette said he was the medical examiner. And Maitland feared a buttoned-down type like that needed only a tissue-paper pretext to order an autopsy.

  "Arlette,” Charbonnet said when he reached the bottom of the stairs. When he paused, studying the new widow from sympathetic eyes, Maitland felt his throat constricting. “Arlette, neither I nor Dr. Tran found anything that would contraindicate a natural death."

  Point, set, match, Maitland exalted silently as the rest of the oppressive weight lifted from his chest.

  Charbonnet spoke in a consoling voice. “Try to buck up. Daddy himself once told me the body is only an envelope for the spirit."

  A sudden grin twisted Maitland's lips and he quickly turned his face away, biting his lower lip hard to keep from laughing.

  "I assume you won't be requesting an autopsy, Mrs. Mention?” Dr. Tran added.

  Tie it up with a bow, cupcake, Maitland urged his lover silently.

  "Yes, there must be an autopsy,” Arlette replied in a firm tone. “Earlier today I found ample grounds for suspicion of foul play."

  Maitland felt a cold hand grip his heart, and each breath was labored. Arlette rose and crossed to a credenza along the nearest wall. He tracked her from a cross-shoulder glance, his mind a welter of confused thoughts. She reached behind some books and pulled out a clear plastic storage bag. Maitland tasted the corroded-pennies taste of fear when he saw the military model Colt .45 inside it.

  "I think my husband was murdered,” she said bluntly, staring at Maitland. “Not by this weapon, but by the man who owns it and killed Professor Barry Skinner with it—Neal Maitland. There's a letter with it that may implicate my husband in a serious crime, but we need to sift this matter to the bottom."