The nun dug a picture out from the folds of her skirt. “This is you, right?”
Blu took a step forward.
She shook the gun at him. “Stay where you are!”
Blu stopped, squinted at the picture. He decided it was definitely him. He was putting a hydraulic winch back together. He’d gotten good at repairing engines, too. And it took hours to repair nets and busted rigging, but his jack-of-all-trades ability was why he was still in business. “I guess that’s me,” he told the nun.
“I doubt there’s two of you,” she offered. “Besides, your name is on the back. And Sister Marian confirmed it’s you.” Her gaze followed his tall, broad frame up then down. “You don’t exactly blend into a crowd, and everyone I talked to knew right where to find you.”
No surprise there, Blu thought. He’d lived in Algiers all of his life. For the past twenty-five years his parents had owned duFray Fish, the fresh-fish market on Front Street. Then there was his stint with Patch Pollaro as hired muscle, not to mention last year’s “heroic deed” that had gained him an altogether new fan base. Hell, yes, people knew him for one reason or another.
“Now what?” Blu forced his attention away from her sexy mouth. “What’s next? You going to shoot me?”
“Not unless you do something stupid.” She slipped the photo back into her pocket. “Show me your left hand.”
The request had Blu arching his heavy black brows. “My hand?”
“Do it!” She motioned with the gun to encourage him.
Blu raised his hand for her to inspect.
“Turn it over.”
He rolled it palm-side up.
“Nothing,” she whispered, and a little sigh of relief followed. Then she closed her eyes and lowered the gun.
Surprised, but never one to let that cloud his judgement, Blu jumped at the opportunity to disarm her. He surged forward, but his boots scraping over the brick courtyard gave away his intentions. She blinked open her eyes, shook off whatever had come over her and quickly raised the derringer. “Get back!”
“Take it easy.” Blu raised his hands. “Put the damn gun down, church mouse, before you drill me without meaning to. That thing wasn’t meant to be waved around like a flyswatter. They usually have a hair trigger.”
“Then I suggest you tell me what you know about Salvador Maland, or you just might end up a dead fly and tomorrow’s news.”
“I already told you, I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“How can you not know someone who has a ten-by-twelve of you in his office?”
Blu shrugged. “Maybe he likes my face.”
“I don’t think you understand. I’m talking ten feet by twelve feet. Your face covers the entire wall in Salva’s office.”
That was the weirdest thing Blu had heard in a long time. So weird, in fact, he sifted the man’s name through his memory bank once more. But it still didn’t produce a familiar face. There was a chance he’d dealt with the man indirectly while working for Patch, but to chase down the name he would have to pay his old boss a visit.
“This picture of me, the one on this guy’s wall, is it recent?”
“It’s the same one I showed you.” She eyed his shaggy black hair, which was a couple inches shorter, but still past his collar. “Please, this is very important.”
“Can you refresh my memory?” Maybe it was the desperate look she was giving him that had made him ask. But more likely it was that damn mouth of hers—she had the sweetest little lips he’d ever seen. “How about telling me how this guy and I might have met?”
His innocent question upset her. She waved the gun at him again. “Refresh your memory? Ha! How can I do that when I can’t even refresh my own? You’re the one who’s supposed to be filling in the blanks here, not me. I traveled all the way from…” She clamped her mouth shut, aware she was on the verge of revealing too much.
“From where?” Blu prompted.
She wiped at the corner of one of her big brown eyes. “Never mind where.”
Blu realized she was fighting tears. “Listen, fille, maybe if you put the gun down we could talk this over.”
“There’s nothing to talk over if you don’t know Salva or…Kristen Harris.” She swore softly. “This has all been for nothing. How could I have been so stupid?”
“Put the gun down.”
Blu watched as she lowered the gun. Then, just as quickly, she raised it again. “I put the gun down and then we both walk away, right?”
Blu’s answer didn’t come quick enough.
“That’s what I thought. You’re not going to let me walk away, are you? Another big man with a big ego. How could I be so lucky?”
“Put the gun down,” Blu growled in a bigger voice than before.
Defiantly she gripped the gun in both hands and took aim at his head. “I don’t think so. I think you should strip, Blu Devil.”
“What?” Blu was sure he hadn’t heard her right.
“I said, take off your clothes.”
“A nun demanding I get naked? That’s a first.”
“It’s not for the reason you think. I’m not dying to get a look at…at Harvey, or whatever you’ve named it. That look you gave me a minute ago suggests I won’t get a block before you come after me. So I’m taking your clothes for insurance.”
She was right about him going after her. No one pulled a gun on the Blu Devil, then walked without paying for the privilege.
“Start with your boots.”
“Or you’ll shoot me?”
She smiled then, a sexy little smile that showed off pearly white teeth. “At this close range, I think I can hit what I’m aiming at. Don’t you?” She took aim at Harvey. “How much do you enjoy being a man, Blu Devil?”
Not as coolly as he would have liked, Blu said, “No complaints.”
“Then I suggest you protect your assets by pulling off your boots.” To prove she meant business, she tugged back the hammer.
“Bon Dieu, fille. You don’t want to do this,” Blu warned. “I never forget a wrong. Never.”
“I believe you’re a man who means what he says, but I don’t have a choice. Your boots, Blu Devil.”
Swearing, Blu leaned against the brick wall and removed his left boot. Next, he pulled the right one. But just as he was setting it down, he dropped to his knees and hurled the number twelve at the nun’s outstretched arm. The gun discharged as it hit the concrete, the bullet ricocheting off the bricks in the narrow courtyard like a Ping-Pong ball. On instinct he drove forward, snagged the nun by her long black skirt and dragged her down.
It was all over within a few hairy seconds, or so Blu thought until the church mouse hefted the boot that lay within arm’s reach and clouted him alongside the temple with enough force to cause him to see stars.
Chapter 3
“You say she was wearing nun’s clothes, but you don’t think she was a nun?”
Blu turned from the window in the New Orleans Police Department and gazed at Ryland Archard, one of the NOPD’s most