Read Online The Stein & Candle Detective Agency, Vol. 1: American Nightmares (The Stein & Candle Detective Agency #1) by Michael Panush - Free Book Online Page B

funny to see Weatherby dote on the child. I always imagined Weatherby had precisely two emotions – anger at the modern world for not speaking Latin properly and sadness for his family’s fate. But this was something else entirely. Weatherby patted Henry Wallace on the shoulder as he looked at Mama Le Croix. “Mrs. Le Croix, perhaps you could discuss your troubles and we might be able to assist you in some manner.”
    “Perhaps,” she said. “Come on in and get comfy. I’ll tell you the whole thing.”
    We followed her into the hut. It was a simple dwelling, with a few crates serving as stools, and numerous Voodoo charms hanging from the ceiling and walls. Mama Le Croix sat down and looked over at me. “You remember my son, Raymond?” she asked.
    I nodded. “Negro hoodlum with a knife scar. Toughest street fighter ever swung a blade.”
    She nodded. “My Raymond was a good boy, Mr. Candle. He worked hard to keep me in green – anyway he could. But a while ago, he got into a card game on one of those Mississippi riverboats with Sly Baum. I told him he shouldn’t have done it. I told him Papa Legba lays out the roads the way he does, and no amount of wishing is gonna help his luck. But he gambled everything away, and he lost it.”
    Henry Wallace Baum folded his hands and looked at his dirtied shoes. “You d-didn’t mention that, Mrs. Le Croix,” he said. “I’m sorry. My father, I think he’s a very good man. But when he’s, you know, gambling, he becomes someone else. I’ve never really seen him gamble, but I think he can be pretty unpleasant.”
    “And what happened to Raymond?” I asked Mama Le Croix. Things were starting to take shape, though there were plenty of gaps that needed to be filled in.
    “He got into the debt and needed to pay it, so he tried knocking over an armored car. Caught a shotgun blast square in the chest. The Loa of Graveyards has him now.” Mama Le Croix sighed. “I wanted Sly Baum to suffer like I suffered. I wanted him to know the terror – the absolute pain – of a parent who loses a son. So I found out where he was and I came here, to steal away his son. I located him, but I couldn’t do it alone.”
    “So you got the guerillas to help you,” I muttered. It made sense. They needed all the cash they could for their crusade against capitalism. But there were some other things that bothered me. “But that’s not all. The mob was in on it.”
    “Sly Baum had been ripping off the gang lords of this city for too long. Don Vizzini met with me when he heard I was moving against him. He had the funds necessary to gamble with Baum into his was out of luck – and deep in debt. It was the perfect vengeance – to make his love of games of chance destroy his son and himself.” Mama Le Croix sighed. “And there was more.”
    “The Central Intelligence Agency approached Sly Baum to help create a spy network that would limit the growing power of the communists in Cuba. Baum refused. The CIA was enraged. An agent named Bobby Belasco approached me. The guerillas found out where he was, Belasco made the kidnapping, and then handed the child off to me, while Don Vizzini and his mobsters kept up the pressure of their debts.”
    Henry Wallace’s thin frame looked deflated. He seemed small enough to pocket. “Oh,” he said. “I guess everyone hates my papa.”
    “Don’t take it personally, kid,” I told him. I knew Bobby Belasco hadn’t been giving me the straight truth. For a curveball like him, that wouldn’t make sense. He had fired on the rebels and gave away our position in an attempt to get us all killed. He probably figured he could weasel his way out of the guerillas’ gun sights. I hoped he had. I wanted to have a little chat with the spy myself. “So you got the whole thing working. Except I get the idea that you’re having second thoughts, seeing as the young Baum is still breathing.”
    Mama Le Croix came to her feet and stood next to Henry Wallace. “He has