Chasing Shadow Demons Read online

  “Fair enough,” Jaeger said. “These ‘two guys,’ as you put it, are CIA contractors. We work together from time to time. They are interested in the activities of Mr. Ivanovich and his associates. They are not at liberty to discuss any of the details of their investigation with you.”

  Once again Jaeger managed to piss me off within a few minutes of sitting across the table from him. The CIA duo sat like robots without batteries, completely expressionless. Jaeger continued, “We want you to cooperate with us. Work with us to nab Ivanovich.”

  I just couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t listen to one more word from this pompous asshole. “We aren’t getting in the middle of your war with Victor. We just want to be left alone. This young lady is my responsibility, and I’ll use whatever means necessary to protect her. She is not a pawn in your pseudo law enforcement game, and neither are Tom and I. So leave us the fuck alone.”

  I looked at Baker, who was using all of his willpower to suppress his smile. It didn’t work. He turned and winked at me as we left the room. Jaeger and the two robots had their hands raised to their chins, calculating their next moves in whispering tones. Their anger wasn’t concealed any better than Baker’s amusement at the conversation we’d just had.

  I needed to talk to Tom, so I asked him to meet me at the condo. If Tom, Piper, and I were going to stay out of the fight between these Godzilla-sized assholes trying to interfere with our lives, we had to act now. When Tom joined me at the condo, he’d just gotten off a call with Hector Gonzales, the member of ROLL with whom we were jailed in Mexico. Tom seemed agitated by the call.

  “Alexandra,” Tom yelled as he burst through the door, “we need to go to Mexico right away. The hybrid corn companies are persuading the Mexican government to allow them to plant their Frankencorn in South Mexico. Hector needs our help to stop this travesty.”

  Piper calmly sat at the kitchen table never looking at Tom. Instead, she watched me carefully to gauge my reaction. I knew how passionate Tom was about environmental transgressions by large multinational corporations, so I treaded lightly.

  “That’s horrible,” I said. “Hector must really be upset. But I don’t think we should leave town right at this moment. You know what’s going on with Victor and that Jaeger guy. Now some CIA guys are involved.”

  “We’d be safer in Mexico. We could get out of their reach with Hector’s help. We can’t just quit living because some prick from Los Angeles threatens us. Can we?”

  “No. We don’t have to quit living our lives, but you said it yourself—we are safer here on our own turf. We don’t know what he could do to us in Mexico. We might be sitting ducks. Our plan was to make our stand in New Orleans. This is our city now, and it will protect us,” I said.

  “That was our plan, but I can’t just turn my back on Hector. I promised to help him. Alexandra, I am ready to fight the bastards too, but they are demons living in the shadows. Who knows how long it will take to get them off our ass. What we need to do is flush them out, just like we did with Rogan.”

  “OK, but we have to be smart about it. We have the power of the press on our side. I’ll contact Jess Johnson at the New Orleans Times to see how she can help. In the meantime, I need to catch up on my public relations campaign for the stevia company. I’ve come up with a slogan I want to run by Mr. Morris tomorrow. ‘Stevia, processed by nature, not by chemicals.’ What do you think?”

  “Pretty good. Why don’t Piper and I stay at my place tonight to give you a little time to work,” Tom said. “You haven’t had a minute to yourself since we returned from Mexico. We can talk about Hector and his problem tomorrow.”

  I looked at Piper to see how she felt about it. She nodded her head in approval, saying, “Can we watch another movie and pop more popcorn?”

  “Damn straight we can,” Tom said. “We’ll even order a pizza.”

  “Perfect,” Piper said. “Pepperoni?”

  “You know how they process that stuff . . . ? Oh, never mind. Pepperoni it is,” said Tom.

  “OK, it’s settled. You two keep your eyes peeled for Victor tonight. I’ll work on my presentation for Mr. Morris after I call Jess Johnson to get input on Victor Ivanovich. I’ll check out my blog to see if anyone out there has information about him. If he’s a shadow demon, the light will fry his ass like water did to the Wicked Witch of the West. We’ll get him before he can release his flying monkeys.”

  Piper laughed at the Wizard of Oz reference. “I can so see Victor in a witch’s costume riding a broom. Maybe if he stays in New Orleans long enough we could persuade Jacques St. Germaine, the Vampire of New Orleans, to bite him and suck the vodka blood from his veins.” We all laughed till our sides hurt.

  Once alone in my condo, I called Jess. She asked me to come to her office early in the morning. After the call, I got to work on my presentation, keeping my gun within reach at all times. I knew Victor came from a culture of death dealing. He trafficked in young women, hooking them on drugs and forcing them to prostitute themselves. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill me if I got in his way.

  Tomorrow we were going on the offensive.

  Chapter Thirteen:

  An Offense

  The morning coffee rallied my blood, forcing me out of bed early. With the aid of my caffeine-charged energetic warriors, I was ready to battle the day. Battle was what I had to do too. I dressed in a business suit, complete with stylish pumps and my .38 strapped to my leg to go to Jess’s office. The television broadcast the news of another prostitute’s body found murdered on the streets. Must be the work of the serial killer Detective Baker mentioned, I thought as I put six additional rounds in my purse for my .38. Navigating through security was a breeze with my near-celebrity status at the paper. Prominently displaying my press credentials and my security badge, I followed the familiar path to Jess’s office. Upon entering I stopped to read the plaque above her desk. My favorite:

  The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. —Edmund Burke

  Jess was the sage of The New Orleans Times. She’d seen good and bad times in New Orleans. Larger problems than mine crossed her desk daily, and if anyone knew how to handle the coming storm, she did.

  “Sit down, girl,” Jess said. “You are here to talk about that child you took in and the people who are after her. Demetre filled me in on all of the details. You’ve got a mess of trouble on your plate. These are bad folks.”

  “They scare me, Jess.”

  “Nothing wrong with being scared. It’s natural. What’s important is what you do with that fear. Do you run or do you fight?”

  “Run?” I said. “I’m not going anywhere. I just want to figure out the best way to fight the bastards.”

  “That’s my girl. I figured you’d say that. I’ve done some research into Victor Ivanovich. He’s the real deal. After the fall of the Soviet Union, lawlessness ruled. Strong, mean criminals fought for control of illegal money-making schemes. Victor was just a teenager at the time. He was smart, and he allied himself with a ruthless group from the former KGB. He schemed and murdered his way to the head of the organization, body by body. No one messes with him, largely because he has always been smarter than the rest of the Russian Mafia guys. He’s a twenty-first-century criminal, assembling a team of hackers whom he’s stashed at one of his strongholds in Moscow. They break into major corporations’, banks’, and governments’ computers around the world stealing money, credit card information, and personal identities. He hacks other mafia group’s cell phones to stay ahead of them.”

  “He’s in New Orleans now. I saw him at the Café du Monde yesterday,” I said.

  “Victor is here in person? That’s interesting. I knew he had thugs here already, but I didn’t know he’d come himself. That’s not his usual style. There must be some compelling reason for him to be here.”

  The corner of my mouth turned down, and I closed
my eyes, creating tiny crow’s feet at the corner of each eye. Anguish pulled my heart into a flurried rhythm because I knew what he was here for. He was here for Piper, but I just didn’t know why.

  “Jess, how do you know Victor’s thugs are in New Orleans?”

  “My sources tell me he’s making a move on the Dixie Mafia’s control of prostitution in the city. Some of the working girls have been approached by his men. Yesterday, a Dixie Mafia street pimp’s body was found floating in Lake Ponchartrain, his throat cut ear to ear. No one else would dare do that. The Italian Mafia and the Dixie Mafia have an understanding. They don’t mess with each other’s property. War is coming to our city, Alexandra, and it won’t be pretty. Bodies will drop on both sides.”

  Great, I thought, like raising a teenager wasn’t hard enough. Now I had to worry about being in the middle of a mafia war. Suddenly my .38 revolver seemed small. Even a combat tank seemed small in the face of all of that shit. But what could I do? I had to fight them.

  I left Jess even more resolved to protect Piper at all costs. It was a cloudy day, scantly misting rain. I looked skyward to the heavens, allowing the rain to bathe my face with nano-drops, to ask my mom and Sarah to look out for me. Maybe it was a coincidence, or maybe it was a sign, but the cloud cover broke and the sun’s rays shone through. I took it as a sign and headed to meet Charlotte and Mr. Morris at Superior Sugar’s corporate office, confident that I could defend my family and my home.

  We convened our meeting in Superior’s conference room. Their large-screen projection capabilities were perfect to demonstrate the PR program I planned. “Stevia, sugar’s healthy alternative.” “Expand your food choices with stevia, not your waist.” These were but two of the many options I presented to Mr. Morris. I was surprised to hear that such a busy man had read every word of the research paper I had written and emailed him in advance of our meeting. The thesis-style report detailed the health benefits of stevia. Mr. Morris homed in on the benefits for diabetics, a disease he’d battled all his life. My father fought the same battle and lost, suffering from dementia and then stroke, his doctor attributing both conditions to sugar. I was pleased to see Mr. Morris loved all of my ideas and would take them to the board of directors at their next meeting.

  After the presentation, Mr. Morris confided in me what he’d already told Charlotte. He was planning to sell his interest in Superior Sugar and spin off the stevia company for himself, feeling he couldn’t continue to sell what he’d learned was poison. Sugar in moderation wasn’t horrible; it was the proliferation into so much of our food that was causing the trouble, and he had helped with that proliferation. As a result, guilt and diabetes had gotten the better of him. Mr. Morris believed sugar contributed to Mandy’s erratic behavior as well, so he wanted to get away—and lead others away—from sugar’s destructive rampage through the American body. His attitude reminded me of Sarah’s need for redemption. Maybe he felt the pursuit of the dollar had clouded his judgment and detached him from his humanity.

  Holy shit, that was more like a therapy session than a meeting, I thought. I applauded his change of course. I’d lost close to thirty pounds and felt wonderful since I’d restricted sugar and other simple carbohydrates. I didn’t cut them out of my diet entirely, but I did make sure to only eat them occasionally. America needed to change, and I was happy to be a part of that change.

  I couldn’t help but notice that Mr. Morris and Charlotte were really close. I wonder what’s going on there? I wondered. Stop that, Alexandra, I chastised myself. Those gossipy thoughts weren’t fair. They were both single, and their business should be private. Besides, I had bigger issues to occupy my thoughts.

  I weaved my way through the slow-moving traffic of the Central Business District, or CBD as we locals called it, my progress momentarily halted by one of the many traffic signals. A homeless man sprayed my windshield with Windex despite my protestations. I rolled my window down to give him a couple of dollars for his effort. As I was distracted, the passenger door opened and a man slid next to me in one swift motion. I barely had time to process what had happened before he jammed what looked like a cannon in my ribs and said, “Take the next right.”

  “What are—” I tried to say.

  “Shut up and do what I tell you to do,” he growled in a deep voice. He looked to be in his late fifties, with greased, black hair, and was maybe five foot eight inches tall. His gut extended over his belt line. Old school tattoos, no doubt acquired in prison, accented his don’t-fuck-with-me demeanor. He guided me to a parking lot and ordered me into a waiting car. I was desperate to escape, but that gun was very convincing. He gave me no time to think, prodding me until I numbly climbed in, two more rough types on either side of me as he drove to the French Quarter. Oh my God, Victor wants to kill me himself, I thought. The car stopped in front of a strip bar on the lower end of Bourbon Street, where the two brutes escorted me inside. We passed a lone girl spinning on a pole beginning her act. She winked at me as I was zipped past her to an office in the rear of the building. She must have thought I was a new girl, and if I wasn’t so terrified, I might have been flattered. I was thrown in a chair in front of a balding, menacing man disgustingly covered with ugly tattoos and cheap gold chains.

  He stared at me without saying a word for what seemed like an eternity, then said, “So you are Alexandra. I’ve heard about you. I’ve even read your blog. I brought you here ’cause you need to do something for me.”

  No, Alexandra, don’t do it, I told myself. But I just couldn’t help it. “I’m not doing a damn thing for you except kick you in the balls if I get the chance.”

  He and the other two men in the room broke out in loud guttural laughter. “Damn, she’s got more stones than that guy we had in here. We had him by the balls ’cause of his drug problems, but he wouldn’t cooperate till we threatened to nab his sister. He caved like a mud house in a hurricane.”

  I knew they were talking about Zach. So that’s how they got him to cooperate. They threatened Maddy. They could threaten me all they wanted, but I’d never make any deals with these demons. They were just like Rogan and those Colombian cartel monsters, thriving in the shadows. Deals with demons like these only lead to misery and death. Look at poor Zach. No matter what he does for them, he can’t get control of his life and off of their roller coaster.

  They didn’t search me, and my gun was strapped to my leg. I’d at least take one of them with me before I went. When they quit laughing, the big asshole behind the desk rocked back in his chair, putting his hand together forming a ten-finger pyramid, “Just listen to what I have to say before you get your panties in a wad.”

  I nodded.

  “We haven’t been formally introduced. Some call us the Dixie Mafia. We are just a bunch of guys working for a living. Our bosses run our group from the prisons. You see, sooner or later we all end up in a prison. If we haven’t done what we were supposed to, we have lots of accidents in jail, some fatal. Our big boss is in Angola State Prison, and he isn’t happy about what’s going on these days. You know that Russian prick Victor Ivanovich wants to move in on our territory. He did the same thing to us in Mobile, and our boss wants to stop Victor from ruining our good thing.”

  “How does any of this involve me?” I asked.

  “You work with the newspapers and the cops. All you need to do is report the truth about what’s going on. We’ll clue you in and you report it. Check out the information as much as you want. Just report it in the paper and to the cops. You see, the cops don’t have a clue what’s really going on in the streets till lots of bodies drop, especially when it involves our kind of people. Then they get around to figuring it out. This Russian prick is the one killing the street hookers in New Orleans. It’s the same shit he pulled in Mobile. First he tries to get the girls to work for him. If they refuse, he kills them and makes it look like a serial killer is on the loose. Who’s going to be the wiser? The cops don’t ca
re about working girls. Neither does the public. It scares the shit out of the girls, and they look to us for protection. They’ll switch sides if we don’t protect them. That’s the game, babe, kill or be killed.”

  “So what proof do you have?” I asked. My journalistic instincts were kicking in. I had compassion for the unfortunate victims, but this could be a major story. I felt guilty for a few seconds, like I was profiting off of the girls’ plight too. But that’s what journalists do: report the truth. Shedding light on these dark dealings would help them more than anything else I could do.

  “We’ve got some girl who will talk to you and the cops and some video you should see. We’ll give you the video, and you handle getting it to the right people,” he said.

  “Let me be crystal clear,” I said. “I’ll make no deal with you.” I hesitated for a moment to let those words sink in. “But if you give me evidence of crimes against these girls, I’ll bring it to the police and report it in my blog and the paper. Understand, we aren’t on the same side. You are predators just like Victor, and if I get the chance, I’ll come after you too.”

  They didn’t laugh this time. They all looked at me with sinister eyes. The man behind the desk sat up straight and leaned toward me. “OK, bitch, for right now, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. We’ll give you the proof. No deal necessary.”

  One of my fat, greasy escorts brought me a disk, before he drove me to my car, blowing me a kiss as I exited his vehicle. Oh my God, the anti Prince Charming just blew me a kiss. I’d just taken a trip to another dimension. Though I projected a tough image, I was scared shitless. My legs shook so much that my knees almost clanged together. I’d just been in the shadowy underbelly of New Orleans. I had known it existed but had no idea it was right under my nose.

  So what was on this disk? Should I go straight to the police station and give it to them? No way. Not until I had a copy for myself. The cops would never let me copy it once they had it.