The ledge was thick enough for me to stand well under, and I shrank back beneath the window. The rain was well and truly coming down, and it curled around the edge of the stone, dripping down onto me as I tried to make myself invisible. To my absolute horror, I heard squelching shoes approach the edge. “Aloha!” came his voice, but it was not his voice, it was his voice when he was crazed. “Aloha, don’t worry, chère, we can get through this together.”
I held my breath.
“I don’t know where you are, but I know you can hear me!” he was shouting into the rainy void now. “You keep running, you little c—, I will find you, and I will kill you for what you’ve done to me.”
An older male voice came from somewhere up to the right, challenging Peter’s right to be on the roof swearing and ‘setting off fireworks’ in the rain. Peter told him he was an officer of the US military on a special mission to capture a spy he’d been tracking.
The old man didn’t believe him, or at least was highly suspicious. The squelching shoes retreated and I breathed out a little, until the scuffling started. I couldn’t make out the words they exchanged but I could guess. A shot from a small caliber gun rang out just then, then came the sound of someone being dragged to the edge I cowered beneath. “If you can see this, Aloha, just remember, you’re next.” Peter’s voice again, much quieter, almost as though he knew where I was. The squelching shoes retreated into the pounding rain, which was still running over the edge of the cut stone ledge and dripping on me, though now it was deep, deep red.
I fought back the terror that threatened to overwhelm me and somehow climbed down the face of that ten story building in the pouring rain. Clad only in my dressing gown, I walked to the ladies’ shop where I worked and let myself in. I left my key, along with some money on the counter as I treated myself to a new wardrobe and luggage. I walked out into the wee hours of the Fourth of July and put the city behind me.
For the next three years I couldn’t keep still. I caught a train in the only direction I could: West. I have lived in Memphis, Chicago, Mackinac Island, Austin, and Denver. He has found me every time. Broke my nose the first time, my arm the second, and nearly put a bullet in me twice. He always hated the South so New Orleans seemed a perfect place to hide out.
I came here in 1927, opened a bar in the French Quarter, sandwiched between an investigator’s office and an old book store. We serve the only good Martinis and the strongest Old Fashioneds in town.
I don’t tell you this story so you feel something for me. I don’t ask anyone to feel anything for me. I tell you this story because Peter’s about to make himself your problem. You all have a choice to make now, to distance yourself from me or not. Peter’s a good sniper, he’s crazed with shell shock, and he wants me dead. I can’t say I’d blame you if you decided to make yourself scarce.
General