Which got me thinking. If they were working with or for Leo, why hadn't he paid for their gear? Questions for another time. "Master sergeant?" When he nodded, I said, "I'll make a run-through ahead of the van, spotting any eyes. You got ears?"
The same guy tossed me a headset. I pulled off my helmet and settled the headset on. "Now, this is what I'm talking about." I had used civilian-style headsets once before in Asheville, when I worked a dicey run to track thefts from a secure warehouse with the security firm where I did my internship. This wasn't too different. "Testing."
"Copy, Princess," a voice said into the earpieces.
"I e-mailed you the street addresses of the likely warehouses," I said.
He turned a small laptop to me, the screen showing a map. "The Warehouse District is upscale and we might have to do on-foot recon. You got too many weapons to pull it off. Hicklin here looks the part."
I finally got a name, or half of one. It was a start. I looked Hicklin over, a twentysomething with slicked-back hair and a shaped Vandyke beard. "Nice suit."
"Itches," he complained.
"I bet." I kicked Bitsa into life. Beast rose through my consciousness and stared out through my eyes. I gave the master sergeant a nod and wheeled my bike around, heading toward the Warehouse District and a war with some of the Rousseau Clan. I didn't bet on it being pretty.
We reached the Warehouse District, the area yuppie-crowd trendy, many of the old warehouses remade into retail and living space for the upwardly mobile. Museums and art stores were everywhere, some chic, all expensive. Many of the old warehouses had been redone into fancy condos and apartments, homes with indoor pools, gyms, and security. I didn't expect any less than great security from the warehouse I was looking for. I peeled away from the van following me and took side streets, rounding corners with tight leans and a burst of speed, checking out the back ways for the intense, varied scents of the rich and fangy.
Beast reached through me, testing the wind for vamp scent, and just as the sun was setting caught a whiff. An old vamp in sunglasses and loads of sunscreen out for an early stroll turned to stare after me as I whizzed past. But he was alone. And he was someone I recognized from the vamp graveyard when Katie was put to earth. A Desmarais elder. Not my quarry. Not my prey. I was looking for mingled Rousseau smell--lots of vamps in one place.
Half an hour later I was on a back alley off Iberville, near Decatur Street, when I caught a whiff of them that quickly grew stronger. Mixed Rousseau smells and an odor of rot came from a ventilation shaft in a brick building that took up half a block. The likely lair was on the back, opening to what once had been an alley. Parking took up a goodly space in back, enclosed utilities area on one side. There were no windows on the lower story at back and sides, three rotating security cameras, one secure garage-style door that looked heavy-duty steel, and next to it, one steel entry door with a tiny steel-mesh-reinforced window, the kind of glass used in prisons. The door had its own keypad entry, camera, and intercom speaker; the security was tight and up to date. Perfect. I glanced at my research. This was one of the addresses once owned by Renee Damours, though the title had transferred to a Henry Poitier back in the nineteen fifties. "Possible target," I said into my mike. I slowed and eased around front; gave the address to the van boys.
The front of the place had been subdivided into three businesses, one an art store. I parked Bitsa in the next block and unhelmeted. I was wearing too many weapons to look like a shopper, but I could look as though I had bike problems. I knelt near Bitsa and pretended to study the back wheel.
Hicklin appeared from my left, meandering, one hand in his pants pocket, tie loose, his phone hanging from one ear. His voice came over my headset, chatting, just a guy killing time window-shopping after work, maybe waiting for a lady friend to join him for supper in one of the hip, pricey restaurants nearby. "You know it, man," he said. "Boss is banging her and his wife is clueless. She catches him and the business will go into a divorce settlement. We'll all be out of a job. . . ." He nattered on as he studied the wares in the windows, getting the lay of the land, looking for cameras and other security. Looking for back doors. He entered the business on the corner, an art store with statues in the front windows, colorful, modern swirly things that looked like clayware. "Later, man."