The Laughing Corpse - Laurell K. Hamilton [83]
His eyes started to sparkle. Laughter spread across his face and burst out between his lips. He laughed full-throated.
The laugh was like candy: sweet, and infectious. If you could bottle Jean-Claude’s laugh, I know it would be fattening. Or orgasmic.
“Ma petite, ma petite, you are absolutely marvelous.”
I stared at him, letting that wonderful, touchable laugh roll around me. It was time to go. It is very hard to be dignified when someone is laughing uproariously at you. But I managed.
My parting shot made him laugh harder. “Stop calling me ma petite.”
22
I STEPPED BACK out into the noise of the club. Charles was standing beside the table, not sitting. He looked uncomfortable from a distance. What had gone wrong now?
His big hands were twisted together. Dark face scrunched up into near pain. A kind God had made Charles look big and bad, because inside he was all marshmallow. If I’d had Charles’s natural size and strength, I’d have been a guaranteed bad ass. It was sort of sad and unfair.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I called Caroline,” he said.
“And?”
“The baby-sitter’s sick. And Caroline’s been called in to the hospital. Someone has to stay with Sam while she goes to work.”
“Mm-huh,” I said.
He didn’t look the least bit tough when he said, “Can going down to the Tenderloin wait until tomorrow?”
I shook my head.
“You’re not going to go down there alone,” Charles said. “Are you?”
I stared up at the great mountain of a man, and sighed. “I can’t wait, Charles.”
“But the Tenderloin.” He lowered his voice as if just saying the word too loud would bring a cloud of pimps and prostitutes to descend upon us. “You can’t go down there alone at night.”
“I’ve gone worse places, Charles. I’ll be all right.”
“No, I won’t let you go alone. Caroline can just get a new sitter or tell the hospital no.” He smiled when he said it. Always happy to help a friend. Caroline would give him hell for it. Worst of all, now I didn’t want to take Charles with me. You had to do more than look tough.
What if Gaynor got wind of me questioning Wanda? What if he found Charles and thought he was involved? No. It had been selfish to risk Charles. He had a four-year-old son. And a wife.
Harold Gaynor would eat Charles raw for dinner. I couldn’t involve him. He was a big, friendly, eager-to-please bear. A lovable, cuddly bear. I didn’t need a teddy bear for backup. I needed someone who would be able to take any heat that Gaynor might send our way.
I had an idea.
“Go home, Charles. I won’t go alone. I promise.”
He looked uncertain. Like maybe he didn’t trust me. Fancy that. “Anita, are you sure? I won’t leave you hanging like this.”
“Go on, Charles. I’ll take backup.”
“Who can you get at this hour?”
“No questions. Go home to your son.”
He looked uncertain, but relieved. He hadn’t really wanted to go to the Tenderloin. Maybe Caroline’s short leash was what Charles wanted, needed. An excuse for all the things he really didn’t want to do. What a basis for a marriage.
But, hey, if it works, don’t fix it.
Charles left with many apologies. But I knew he was glad to go. I would remember that he had been glad to go.
I knocked on the office door. There was a silence, then, “Come in, Anita.”
How had he known it was me? I wouldn’t ask. I didn’t want to know.
Jean-Claude seemed to be checking figures in a large ledger. It looked antique with yellowed pages and fading ink. The ledger looked like something Bob Crachit should have been scribbling in on a cold Christmas Eve.
“What have I done to merit two visits in one night?” he said.
Looking at him now, I felt silly. I spent all this time avoiding him. Now I was going to invite him to accompany me on a bit of sleuthing? But it would kill two bats with one stone. It would please Jean-Claude, and I really didn’t want him angry with me, if I could avoid it. And if Gaynor did try to go up against Jean-Claude, I was betting on Jean-Claude.
It was what Jean-Claude had done to me a few weeks ago. He had chosen me as the vampire’s champion. Put me up against a monster that had slain three