Four Alpha Brothers Hunted the Ghostwriter, Now He Sleeps in Their Bed novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Magazine Street

Emile took the bus.

He pulled a grey hood up over his curls.

He rode two hours to New Orleans with his forehead on the window and walked the last mile up Magazine Street.

Ledoux Music was a pale townhouse with iron lace on the balcony and a brass plate by the door.

He had been there twice before, four years ago, to sign.

The same secretary led him upstairs without a word.

Maurice Ledoux sat behind a desk the size of a canoe, in a linen suit the color of cream, with a ring on every finger.

"Emile," he said, and rose with both hands out. "My boy. Sit."

"I'll stand."

"As you like." Ledoux sat again, smiling. "You've been a naughty one."

"I went to a party."

"You went to the Theriots' party, in a mask, and walked out in one of their shirts."

Emile looked down.

He was wearing Thibault's black T-shirt, three sizes too big, and he had not noticed.

"How do you know that?"

"Everyone who matters knows where the Theriots are."

Ledoux opened a drawer and laid an envelope on the blotter.

"Ten thousand dollars. Cash. Take it, and go home."

"Go home," Emile repeated.

"Back to your crawfish," Ledoux said. "Your mother's treatments continue."

"I draw up a tighter agreement, and you never pick up a pencil near those brothers again."

Emile stared at the envelope.

Ten thousand dollars was eight months of his mother's copays.

It would have been a fortune yesterday.

"Why?" he said. "Why do you care who I see?"

"Because you're a very valuable ghost." Ledoux steepled his fingers. "And ghosts, Emile, are not supposed to be found."

"They said you told them I refused to meet," Emile said.

"Naturally."

"They said they paid you two million dollars for me."

"They did," Ledoux said. Ledoux's smile did not move. "I'm a businessman. That money was for the steady supply of excellent songs. It was not for you."

The phone in Emile's hoodie pocket was already recording.

He had started it on the bus, out of old habit, to catch a lyric.

Now he pressed his thumb against the screen and prayed.

"So you stole it," Emile said. "Every cent."

"I invested it," Ledoux said.

"You invested my money."

"I invested their money, my boy," Ledoux said. "Yours is in that envelope. Do take it."

Emile picked up the envelope.

He weighed it in his hand.

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