Page 14 of Road to Ruin
“Night, Mitch.”
******
It was an accident, but Mitch let a tiny piece of information slip just now. He said, “The Champion Ultime fights are a very well kept secret.” Laughable that he told me the name of the event as he was telling me how clandestine they were. He was fretting, though, clearly not paying attention to the words that were coming out of his mouth, and I have very sharp ears along with an excellent memory. Just ’cause I know about the blood sports that fund much of Alexander Bastien’s empire doesn’t mean I know where they’re held, or what the events are called, so this little tidbit of information is very helpful. As soon as I’m off the phone, I open up my laptop and type in “Champion Ultime New Orleans.” The top result that pops up is for NCIS: New Orleans, season one, available to purchase now on Amazon. I suppose it would be too much to ask for the initial result to be directions to an underground fighting ring, but it’s frustrating that the entire first page is dedicated to a TV show and where you can buy it. Page two is the same. It’s not until I hit the fourth page that I stumble across any other information, and then it’s all course info for a community college I’ve never heard of before. Page six’s results are vague and barely related to the search terms anymore: “The Tourism Board of New Orleans invites you to explore our historical city. Enjoy a coffee and a beignet at the iconic Café Du Monde.” Four different ghost tour companies advertising their services come next, and then—
Wait…
The third ghost tour company…
There’s a tiny, grainy image next to the web address for “Papa Rioux’s Authentic Cemetery and Haunted Maison Tours, EST. 1921.” The tiny thumbnail depicts a cemetery scene, all dark blues and blacks, but in the bottom righthand corner of the image, there’s an unmistakeable splash of red. I click on the image and it enlarges, showing numerous headstones, a twisted, sinister-looking tree in the background with a rope and noose hanging from one of the boughs…and then a small, red CU in the corner. CU? Champion Ultime? Could it be that this ghost tour company has something to do with the underground fights?
It’s such a tenuous link. The CU could stand for anything. It could be the license number of the stock image they’ve used on their website. It could mean literally anything. I don’t know, though…I’m a logical, pragmatic person. I don’t often get what people term “gut feelings” or bouts of intuition, and when I do I’m the least likely person to follow irrational or dangerous paths to settle a suspicion. But this time, it feels like more than just intuition. It seems to make sense. What better way to hide an illegal business than behind a legitimate one? And Mitch said his father used to fight in this Champion Ultime organization when he was just a little kid. Papa Rioux’s Authentic Cemetery and Haunted Maison Tours was established in 1921, which means the company has been around more than long enough to have been hiding something like this.
Before I know what I’m doing, I’m getting changed out of my PJs and I’m pouring my glass of wine down the sink. I dial the number advertised on the Rioux website as I’m collecting my car keys and walking out of my front door.
“Good evening, you have reached Papa Rioux’s Authentic Cemetery and Haunted Maison Tours. How can I assist you this evening?” a heavily accented female voice purrs down the line.
“Yes, I was wondering if you’re fully booked on your midnight cemetery tour tonight?”
“For how many guests?”
“Just one.”
There’s a pause and then a ruffling of papers, which I think is just for effect. “You’re in luck, madame. We have one space available on our midnight tour. Would you like to reserve the spot now via Visa or Master Card?”
Fucking scam artists. I keep a civil tongue in my head, but I’m seething as I check my jacket pocket to make sure I have my credit cards. “Sure.” I smile sweetly. I know this is going to lead to the fights. Whatever I have to pay to make that happen will be worth it if it means I can make sure Junior is okay. He took more than one beating defending me at the Parish. I won’t stand by now and allow him to fall back into his old life. I just fucking won’t.
******
It’s eleven by the time I make it across the city. Traffic is light, but I drive the longest route possible in order to give myself some time to think. I need to make sure I know what I’m doing. And I need to figure out how I’m going to broach the subject of an underground fight ring with the tour guide when I’m surrounded by a bunch of wide-eyed tourists. I doubt people just come right out with it and ask. There’s probably some sort of buzzword or something, and only people who use it get taken to the fights. Seems like a lot of effort to me, but like Mitch said, this thing is run by criminals. Successful criminals don’t stay successful for long if they advertise their criminal activity to all and sundry.
I stop at a roadside food truck and order a burger. The skeletal guy behind the register inside the truck looks surprised when I ask for extra cheese. He probably expected me to ask for a veggie patty and no bun or something. I’m hardly skinny, but I’ve been blessed with a high metabolism. A lot of women assume I work out every day and pick over salads to maintain my physique, but the truth is I binge on junk food every available opportunity I get. I just can’t seem to put on weight.
I’m not really hungry tonight, though. I eat half of the burger and then disassemble it to its parts, stabbing the thick slab of tomato with my plastic fork, tearing the lettuce into small pieces. I’m worried. Seriously fucking worried. Junior didn’t deserve to be sent to the Parish the first time around, and I can’t help but feel like he’ll be back there sooner rather than later if he doesn’t have someone looking out for him. That someone should not be me. I know that. I’m aware of what will happen if the prison board finds out what I’m doing, but fuck. If I don’t get involved, Junior’s life will be over, one way or another.
Goddamn these tour guides for being so melodramatic. Why the hell do they need to wait until midnight before running the cemetery tour? Why not just do the tours when it gets dark and be done with it?
The allotted time rolls around very slowly. I toss the remains of my burger into the trash and head to the meet-up point that was sent to my email account. I almost laugh when I see how many other people are loitering in the parking lot, waiting for the guide to show up. Four. Four people. So much for the tour being completely booked up. I’ve seen crowds of twenty or thirty people tripping over each other on these things.
Two girls stand side-by-side, arms looped together, already looking freaked out. An older man, maybe early sixties, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, stands a solid fifteen feet away from them, talking to what I’m assuming is his wife, though she’s a good twenty years younger than him and is wearing skyscraper heels and a mini skirt. Okay, maybe wife is being a little generous. She looks like the kind of woman you can hire for the night, if not by the hour.
I stand off to one side, flicking through the newsfeed on my phone, head down, trying not to draw attention to the fact that I’ve shown up to this bizarre tour alone, or that I have my gun tucked neatly into the waistband of my jeans, in the small of my back. I would have been foolish not to bring it after how dangerous Mitch made the fights sound.
At around quarter past twelve, a sleek black panel van with no windows pulls up into the parking lot, the frame of the vehicle shaking violently as heavy, bass-driven music thumps from the speakers inside. The van looks brand new, the paintwork waxed and polished to a high shine under the security lights posted in intervals around the parking lot. I’m expecting a thuggish, dangerous-looking individual to climb out of the vehicle, but instead a short, overweight guy in a pale blue button-down shirt swings out of the driver’s seat and drops from the seat to the ground. He’s so pale, his skin almost looks transparent, and the cuffs of his pants have been rolled up at least five or six times by the looks of things. He collects a clipboard from the car and heads over to the group, fishing a pen out of his creased khakis.
“All right, all right. Good evening, ladies and gents, and thank you for choosing Papa Rioux’s. Papa’s a little under the weather this evening, so I have the pleasure of stepping in and taking this tour. That sound good to you guys?”
“Where’s your cape?” the leggy blonde with the heels asks.
Her companion in the Hawaiian shirt looks at her and, presumably seeing the disappointment on her face, frowns. “Yeah. This is a ghost tour. The guide on the website was wearing a cape and vampire fangs.”
The short guy with the clipboard sighs heavily. “My name is Russell. I’m afraid I’m not an actor like some of our other guides. I normally do the accounts for Papa Rioux’s tours, but I am a historian, and I do know everything there is to know about the cemeteries we will be visiting this evening. Some people might consider themselves lucky to have someone well versed in New Orleans folk lore take them around instead of a guy dressed up to look like Dracula who just reads everything from a script.”
Heels and Hawaiian Shirt just stare at him blankly.
“Never mind,” Russell says awkwardly. “I’ll get things started by checking you all off my list, and then we’ll get moving. Harriett?”
One of the girls, the one wearing glasses, raises her hand, chewing nervously on her lip.“Here.”
