Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 08 - Death in the French Quarter by Kent Conwell Page A

breath, I followed.
    Inside the thick hedge through which a few stray
shafts of streetlights barely penetrated, I discovered a
wrought-iron gate. Voices came from inside, and I
quickly pressed up against the wall. They were too distant to hear what they were saying.
    I felt along the gate, searching for a latch of some
sort. My fingers touched a sliding bolt, which I slowly
eased aside. Gently, I tugged on the gate, freezing instantly when it squeaked.
    Sweat popped out on my forehead as I strained to
pick up any unusual sound, but all was silent except for
the passing vehicles on Rampart Street. If I couldn’t
hear the three, maybe they couldn’t hear me. I tugged
the gate open just enough to slide through.
    I hesitated. Sneaking through any graveyard at night
was enough to send my heart racing, and to think I was about to creep through the ghostly shadows of towering
tombs three hundred years old was enough to send it
into heart attack range.

    The perimeter of the cemetery was illumined by the
peripheral glow of the streetlamps, which filled the
aisles between tombs with inky shadows several feet
deep. Easing down the first aisle, I crouched in the
darkness and listened. To the south, I heard indistinct
voices, so I crept along the cracked and broken sidewalk, taking care to stay in the gloom cast by the ancient brick and stucco tombs, some of which were
crumbling, some of which were in good repair. The
musty smell of long dead bodies filled the air with a
dry, moldering odor that clogged my nostrils.
    Suddenly, I tripped over a slab of concrete pushed up
by the constant rise and fall of the gumbo soil on which
the cemetery was built.
    A distant voice carried down the corridors between
the rows of tombs. “What was that?”
    I crouched in a shadow and froze, peering into the
darkness beyond.
    “What?” I recognized Punky’s guttural voice.
    “That noise.”
    “Forget it, Hummer. Just a cat”
    “Didn’t sound like a cat”
    Disgusted, Punky snapped. “Then go look.”
    Hummer hesitated. “I ain’t going by myself. Come
on, Ziggy. You go with me”
    Ziggy whined. “I ain’t going. It wasn’t nothing.”
    Punky groaned. “Go on, Ziggy. I’ll go on ahead. You two come on when you finish.” He muttered a soft
curse.

    Grimacing, I looked around, searching for a hiding
spot.
    Just behind me was a collapsing brick tomb about
chest high. Next to it stood a well-maintained white
stucco tomb with angels on either side of the wide doors.
    Moving quickly but carefully, I slipped between the
two, planning on hiding behind one of them. I stumbled
and grabbed at the crumbling tomb for support. The
centuries old mortar fell apart under my hand, sending
a brick crashing to the ground, which, in the tense silence of the graveyard, sounded like a cannon shot.
    “Hey,” Hummer whispered loudly. “Hear that?
Come on”
    Ziggy forced a weak laugh. “Aw, it was just a cat or
something. It won’t hurt you. Now, let’s get back to
Punky.”
    “Come on,” Hummer demanded.
    Cursing under my breath, I dropped into the thick
shadows on the ground at the rear of the old tomb. I
could hear footsteps growing closer. I leaned deeper
into the shadows, expecting to press up against the rear
of the tomb, but the back had fallen away, and I lost my
balance and tumbled into the tomb. I threw out my hand
to break my fall and grabbed the corner of a wooden
coffin.
    If I hadn’t heard Hummer’s and Ziggy’s voices in
front of the old tomb, I probably would have screamed
my head off.

    I was off balance, my extended arm all that was
keeping me from falling. I couldn’t shift my feet for
balance for fear of being heard. My imagination ran
rampant with terrifying thoughts of what might be
slithering toward my arm in the darkness.
    Ziggy and Hummer stood in front of the tomb for
what seemed like hours. My arm began to ache, then
under the constant strain of supporting my weight, to