Heather Graham by Down in New Orleans Page A

there was what had happened to Gina. Gina who got too involved with people. Gina who was just so blinded by her own beliefs that she couldn’t see what havoc passion and emotion played upon others.
    Gina. Who had refused to see evil.
    April, bless her, was diligently moving on stage. Now there was a fine, good girl. More beautiful than heaven, more luscious than sin. Minding her own business, making it her own way. April was going to come out of things okay.
    He walked over to his desk, ran his hand over the highly polished wood. He shrugged to himself, admitting he might be a little weird himself.
    On edge.
    Lascivious.
    One of the last times he’d been with Gina...
    Had been here. Feeling the imported leather beneath his flesh; watching her move on the highly polished wood. She’d caught him unaware that day. Come in when he’d just shed his clothing. He hadn’t known that the door was unlocked. She hadn’t expected quite what she found.
    God, it had been one hell of an afternoon.
    He strode to the wet bar, poured himself a bourbon. Drank it down, poured another. Hell, that was one thing he could do. Drink. When he finally died, they wouldn’t need to embalm him; he’d be so completely pickled by then. Wouldn’t matter none. He liked his life. He had achieved the unbelievable. The leather was his to feel against his naked skin. The girls were his, too. He didn’t own them. He didn’t need to. They came to him. Because they liked leather, too. Champagne, silk, and all that money had to offer. And hell, some of the girls were kinkier than the damned guys. Some of them knew how to get down . It was a good life. When the lights went out, he’d be ready. He wouldn’t expect mercy, he wouldn’t expect heaven, and he wouldn’t be afraid of hell. He’d known both on earth already.
    He walked back to the window, holding his drink in one hand so that he could shed his jacket and his shirt as he watched the stage.
    His frown suddenly deepened.
    Gregory and Cindy were at the bar, his dark head almost against her pale one. It looked like they were a pair of old geezers crying into their beers.
    Talking. Still talking.
    He shook his head.
    Hell, some people never learned.
    The cops might be holding the artist. They might even have enough circumstantial and forensic evidence to pin it on him.
    But Gina was dead .
    And talk was dangerous.
    Fools.
    Talk could be just so damned dangerous...
    Harry Duval pondered whether or not Gregory knew anything.
    If he had seen anything.
    He wondered what the hell he was saying.
    Indeed, if he had anything at all to say...
    Ann was afraid that he would take her someplace far too obvious. She was known by most of the cafe people close to her own home off of Bourbon Street, and she desperately wanted to be out without being recognized. The hospital people were all as kind as they could be to her, but they pitied her. They would fight to keep Jon alive, but they, like the rest of the city, had condemned him without a trial.
    Okay, she admitted as they drove. So maybe, if you didn’t know Jon, he did appear to be guilty. She could admit that much. But she could also hope that someone out there would realize that Jon had been seriously attacked as well, and that the murder weapon had yet to appear. Of course, she had supposedly hidden the murder weapon. No one had yet appeared with a search warrant for her home, but then again, she had left her house with police crawling all over it—doors wide open—when she had gone to the hospital with Jon.
    He parked his car in a private garage just outside the French Quarter, or Vieux Carre— Old Square . He led her along a side street she’d never seen herself, down a walkway, and back into a cafe with a private garden setting.
    The waitress’s name was Helena. She knew Mark; she was a pretty woman of about thirty who greeted him with a warm kiss on the cheek. “You’re off the beaten path today,” Helena said, leading them to a white-washed