Dragons Wild

In the Quarter, however, with its round-the-clock bars and steady flow of drunken tourists, it was apparent to the most casual eye that there was a thriving cottage industry of muggers, shakedown artists, and hustlers, ever ready to separate the unwary from the contents of their wallets, purses, and/or pockets. While the main drag of Bourbon Street was well lit and closely policed, a mere block off that thoroughfare and one was on their own. People tended to watch the other pedestrians as they walked, and were quick to change sides of the street or to duck into an open bar if they didn’t like what they saw coming toward them.

Griffen was particularly distressed by the terrain in this claustrophobic community. The campus and small college town that had been his old stomping grounds were honeycombed with alleys, doorways, and shortcuts that one could duck into or through at the least sign of trouble. In the Quarter, by contrast, all the side streets were narrow and one-way with parking allowed only on one side. What was worse, all the buildings were built flush with the street offering no cover at all. Openings into courtyards or passages between apartment buildings all had locked gates topped by daunting coils of barbed or razor wire to discourage casual entry. Overall, during his late-night prowls, it gave Griffen the same feeling of security as a rabbit would feel on a cut-over field with hawks circling. He made a mental note that, if the feeling persisted, he would have to talk to Jerome about the wisdom of carrying a firearm.

He kept thinking, what if something serious came at him. There was nowhere to hide from someone truly pursuing him. Even the bars that one could duck into had open fronts and many windows. The constant patrol by local police gave some solace, but not enough. If something went wrong, someone really out for a dragon, all a policemen might do was fill out the paperwork afterward.

Still, all this was not enough to detract from Griffen’s enjoyment of the Quarter. By the end of a week he had a good feel for the layout of the streets, and he had even found a bar to frequent that was more local service industry than tourist. It was a little Irish pub (that rarely if ever played Irish music) two blocks off Bourbon. It had two coin-operated pool tables that were surprisingly well maintained and had a good selection of Irish whiskey including Griffen’s personal favorite, Tullamore Dew. More important, it seemed to be a regular hangout from an interesting assortment of attractive young ladies in their twenties and thirties who did not seem at all adverse to striking up a conversation with a newcomer that went beyond “May I take your order?”

He was sitting at the bar there one night, idly watching a closely contested pool match, when his cell phone went off. He glanced at the caller ID, more for show than anything else as there were only two people who currently had his number, then flipped it open.

“Hey, Jerome. What’s up?”

“You got anything planned for tomorrow? During the day?”

“Nothing special. Why?”

“I’ll swing by in the morning around noon and pick you up.”

“Okay. What’s the deal?”

“Figure it’s time to take you shopping.”

Twelve

“So what’s wrong with the way I dress?”

Griffen was mock protesting as Jerome led the way down the stairs from his second-floor apartment in the slave quarters. In the back of his mind, however, he had a horrifying image of Jerome outfitting him in some flashy pimp outfits.

“Blue jeans and T-shirts may be fine for a college boy who’s hustling card games,” Jerome said. “For what you’re going to be doing down here, though, your wardrobe definitely needs an upgrading.”

They reached ground level, but instead of heading off across the courtyard, Jerome stopped in front of Valerie’s door and rapped lightly on the frame. Almost at once the door opened and Griffen’s sister stuck her head out.

“Hi, guys!” she said. “Hang on, I’ll be with you in just a couple more minutes.”

“How come we’re taking Val along?” Griffen asked after she disappeared.

“Couple reasons,” Jerome said. “First of all, I thought she might enjoy doing a little shopping herself. Second, women usually have a better eye for clothes than men, so she can help us out.”

Jerome glanced at Griffen and gave him a quick wink.

“Third, having her along will keep you from worrying that I’m going to dress you up like a pimp.”

Griffen flushed slightly, then laughed.

“Okay. You caught me on that one,” he said. “Seriously, though, what kind of clothes are we looking for?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, you can tell a lot about people by how they dress…especially in the Quarter,” Jerome said, leaning against the wall. “Mostly, we’ll be working on what we don’t want you to look like. Like I said, the way you’ve been dressing, you look like some college kid in from LSU to whoop it up on Bourbon Street. That’s not good.”