Undercover Encounter. Rebecca York

for aerobic activity—unless you counted wielding a cocktail shaker.

      Now that he was away from his post, he allowed himself a few minutes of relaxation. Dragging in a breath of the humid air, he watch the boisterous crowd parading up and down the most famous street in the French Quarter, past bars, strip joints, boutiques selling cheap souvenirs and voodoo hexes, and, of course, the all-essential condom shop up the way.

      Music blared from the bars and jazz clubs, mingling with the raunchy conversation of the crowd. Bourbon Street at night was a party animal’s playground. Or a trap for the unwary.

      The doctor had told Conrad that the hospital had seen several older men come in under circumstances similar to Wiley Longbottom’s. They’d all ingested an unidentified drug that stimulated the libido but had the dangerous side effect of elevating the heart rate to the extreme. Demanding answers, Conrad had contacted Police Chief Henri Courville, who’d immediately gone into defensive mode, claiming that his department was putting all the resources it could spare into tracking the source of the new designer drug.

      After some initial finger-pointing, Conrad and the police chief had calmed down enough to play ball with each other. Which was why New Orleans Confidential was now running a joint operation with the P.D.

      The arrangement didn’t exactly thrill Alex.

      His last couple of years as a police detective had been marred by red tape and departmental screwups. The final straw had come after he’d busted his butt to get the evidence for a capital murder case—and the conviction had been thrown out due to a legal loophole.

      After that, the job simply hadn’t been the same. He’d taken a leave of absence from the force, done some freelance investigative work and spent a lot of time fixing up the house he’d bought, wondering if he could support himself as a private eye. Then Conrad Burke had tracked him down and made him an offer, and he’d jumped at the chance to work for a man he respected.

      Unfortunately now he was stuck having to make both Conrad Burke and Henri Courville happy.

      Down the street, a man was leaning over one of the wrought-iron balconies and tossing newly minted faux “doubloons” and cheap necklaces to a rowdy crowd. Once such activity had been strictly a feature of Mardi Gras. Now you saw it all the time down here. He eyed some of the girls down below, wondering if one of them would take off her T-shirt and bra to get some loot thrown her way. When all the ladies kept their shirts on, he went back into the bar.

      Jack gave him a narrow-eyed look. “Nice of you to join us. We’re pretty busy in here.”

      Alex shrugged. He and Jack had a pretty prickly relationship. “The next time we get a guy with a knife, you can take care of him.”

      “Not my job.”

      Alex didn’t bother to answer. He already knew that Jack was pretty busy—mixing drinks and pushing drugs. A dangerous combination. It was only a matter of time before the little squirt got himself into serious trouble.

      They stayed out of each other’s way for the next half hour. Then a group of five overdressed older businessmen, looking like they were out slumming, came into the bar and took a table on the right. After the scantily clad cocktail waitress wrote down their drink requests, she headed for Alex. But Jack signaled her to come to him instead.

      “I owe you one,” he said to Alex as he scanned the order, then began making Hurricanes. Alex gave him a thumbs-up and went back to work on a batch of Margaritas for some wet-behind-the-ears college kids. But he kept tabs on Jack. The guy bent down below the level of the bar. When he came back up, it looked like the cuff of his long-sleeved shirt was bulging just a little. As he mixed one of the Hurricanes, a fine mist of white powder fell from underneath the cuff into the drink. Not powdered sugar, Alex thought as he watched the bartender stir the stuff into the drink.

      He’d bet his nonexistent New Orleans P.D. pension that it was Category Five.

      The prime targets for this deadly designer drug were older affluent men. It aroused them sexually—allowing prostitutes to prey on them—but if too much was contained they could die of heart attacks. The cop in him wanted to warn the businessmen. But, since Wiley’s heart attack, nobody else had ended up in the hospital. And giving out warnings would jeopardize the joint undercover NOC-PD operation.

      So he watched the waitress swish her hips over to the table and chat with the guys while she distributed the drinks. He kept an eye on the men, seeing the symptoms develop in one of them, the same signs he’d seen in Wiley. The guy with the spiked drink got red in the face, shifted in his seat and began talking pretty loudly.

      Obviously embarrassed, the others in his group tried to calm him down, but he wasn’t willing to be restrained. Over the next twenty minutes, he became increasingly obnoxious.

      When a little working girl at a nearby table caught his eye, he left his friends and went over to sit with her. Probably they were glad to get rid of him.

      Mentally taking notes, Alex watched the guy indiscreetly paw at her in public before they headed for the front door.

      Alex wanted to find out where they were going. Since the crowd in the bar had thinned, he tossed an “I’ll be right back” in Jack’s direction.

      Before the other bartender could object, he hurried down the hall toward the men’s room, then made for the back exit where he ducked into the alley, gagging at the smell of garbage bags waiting to be picked up in the morning. The couple had gone out the front door. He charged down the alley and through a passageway that led from a private garden back to the street. There he scanned the crowd. But his quarry had disappeared. He couldn’t take a chance on passing Tony at the door. His only option was to search in the opposite direction—toward the far end of Bourbon Street where the lights were lower and the crowds were thinner.

      He thought he’d lost the pair. But his luck held and he caught a glimpse of the happy couple just turning the corner.

      Probably the guy wouldn’t realize he was being followed. But the woman might catch on. Playing safe, Alex hung back, watching them make for a sprawling stucco building with Ionic columns holding up a small portico in front. When they disappeared inside, he hugged the shadows across the street and strolled past, looking at the name above the door. The McDonough Club.

      He blinked, thinking he’d read it wrong. But the words stayed the same.

      He’d heard of the place. It was an old and distinguished men’s club, named after one of the city’s benefactors. Could the working girl really be planning to take her date here?

      Well, they’d gone inside. He’d report that at the morning meeting and check out the vital statistics on the club.

      Meanwhile he’d better get back before he lost his job.

      By sprinting all the way, he arrived at the alley door of the bar about ten minutes after he’d left. Ducking into the men’s room, he took a couple of deep breaths and washed his hands. When he glanced at his watch he saw that it was half past midnight. In a couple of hours he could go home and catch a little sleep. Then it was on to his other assignment—playing truck driver.

      Jack gave him a dirty look when he returned. But he pretended to be oblivious.

      He was hoping that the rest of the evening would be less eventful. But no such luck. Twenty minutes later, as he drew another draft of beer, his attention zinged to the front door when three dark Latino men swaggered into the bar. All of them were large and muscular, with slicked-down black hair, new jeans and dark T-shirts. Actually, Alex was surprised when Tony stepped aside and let them in, since they looked like trouble.

      They took a table in the back, speaking Spanish and acting as though they owned the place. As he glanced at them from time to time, Alex began making connections. They looked as if they could be some of the Nilia rebels due to arrive in town.

      The rebels were the reason the Department of Public Safety had opened this new branch of Confidential in New Orleans in the first place. Their leader, Ricardo Gonzalez, aka “Black Death,” was bent on overthrowing