Louisiana Fever

by D. J. Donaldson

  She moved her hand to the back of Broussard’s neck, which by now had become about as red as his face. “Maybe you’d like to see the pony before you decide,” she purred.

  “It’s temptin’ miss, but I been tryin’ to cut down on sweets.”

  “Well, if you change your mind, I’ll be around.”

  “Very gallant,” Blackledge said. “But you mixed your metaphors.”

  “They weren’t metaphors; they were euphemisms,” Broussard replied.

  Blackledge turned to the barkeep. “We’re from the Health Department. . . .”

  “We got no problems dere,” the barkeep said. “We got a good score las’ time.”

  “It’s not about that. Do you know a salesman named Walter Baldwin?”

  “Not dat Ah can recall.”

  “Crescent City Bar and Restaurant Supplies—his call book says he was in here about two weeks ago.”

  “We get a lotta salesmen.”

  “This one is dead, from a disease he probably contracted from a tick bite, and we’re here to see if this is where he was bitten or where he picked up the tick. Has anyone connected with this place recently acquired an unusual animal as a pet?”

  “Ah don’ know dat much about da help.”

  “Have there been any animals of any kind on the premises in the last month?”

  “Not while Ah been here, but we open long hours. Maybe da other bartender knows somethin’. Ah could call an’ ask.”

  “We’d appreciate it. Before you do that, have any of the employees been seriously ill lately?”

  “One of da cleanup ladies got a hysteriaectomy.”

  “That’s all?”

  “She talk like it was enough.”

  “Go ahead and make your call, and ask the other bartender about sick employees, too.”

  “Soon’s Ah get dis cowboy down here a refill.”

  “Suppose the tick that bit Baldwin came in on a customer’s pants,” Broussard said.

  “That’d make our job harder.”

  “So what we’re doin’ won’t necessarily produce results.”

  “That’s what makes it so much fun.”

  The barkeep placed the call but got nothing useful. Over the next four hours, Broussard and Blackledge visited seven bars and ten restaurants, covering all of Baldwin’s calls for the fifteenth. Blackledge then took Broussard back to the lab so he could pick up his T-Bird.

  They kept the gate at the entrance to the lab access road locked at night, so Blackledge had to get out of the car, unlock it, drive through, get out again, and relock it, a surprisingly unsophisticated way of doing things for an operation that included a biosafety level-four lab.

  The armadillo population in the grassy area was even larger at night, and in the marsh, the headlights caught a family of nutrias crossing the road. In the swamp, Blackledge swerved to avoid a snake that Broussard first thought was a piece of inner tube from a bicycle tire lying in the road.

  When they reached the lab, Blackledge slid the Mercedes into the slot beside Broussard’s car and said, “I’ll pick you up at the corner of Tulane and La Salle at nine tomorrow morning. Don’t be late.”

  “I still think we ought to check out the dock angle.”

  “Known contacts first,” Blackledge said.

  Broussard followed the Mercedes back to the gate, waited while Blackledge unlocked it, then followed him through and drove off, leaving him to relock it.

  Twenty minutes later, when he pulled into his garage, Broussard was still thinking he shouldn’t have wasted time barhopping with Blackledge—but should have spent that time going over the body and clothing of the strangulation victim again and again, until it yielded something. The thought that Gatlin might have found a match for the guy’s prints sent him directly to the phone in his study, pursued by Princess, who thought she should come before prints.

  Finding no messages, he dialed the office and entered the code to get any that might have been left for him there. He learned only that the chain-metal gloves had arrived. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, he saw Natalie in his mind’s eye, her mask stained with blood. Reminded of her death, he stood quietly by the phone, reviewing his role in what had happened to her.

  Finally, feeling Princess pushing on his shins with her head, he picked her up and made amends for his inattention by taking her into the kitchen and giving her a dollop of cream in her Wedgwood bowl. While she drank it, he went to the bedroom, sat on the bed, and thought again about Natalie and then about Kit.

  He was sitting close to the edge of the blanket he’d thrown back the previous night, and even though it was a good blanket, it transmitted a tiny amount of his body heat, more than enough to set off the sensors in the front legs of the tick folded inside.

  Broussard sat for a minute or so, turning things over in his mind, until he felt the need to visit the bathroom. With him gone from the bed, there was no longer a focal heat source seeping through the blanket, so the still-activated tick inside was free to roam. It soon emerged from the end of the blanket fold and dropped to the floor.

  Small as it was, the tick was ferrying in its thin blood and saliva thousands of life-forms so tiny and so primitive, they could barely be called alive—organisms incapable of thought, unable to move on their own from place to place, lacking even the capacity to experience the pleasures of replication, which in their twilight existence was their only function. Clothed in a few paltry proteins and containing a smudge of nucleic acid, they were among the most efficient assassins on earth, able to trick their way smoothly into the cells of competent hosts, hijack the machinery inside, and subvert it to the synthesis of their progeny, committing Paleozoic rape before they killed.

  There was half an inch of clearance under the bathroom door that allowed the carbon dioxide in Broussard’s breath and his body heat to make their way into the bedroom. The tick turned in that direction and scurried over the carpet.

  It ran under the bathroom door and paused on the other side. Sensing its quarry immediately ahead, it quickly set off again at intercept speed. At the sink, Broussard finished drying his hands and started for the door. Aware of his advance, the tick paused again and lifted its front pair of legs to hook him. But with Broussard’s next step, a sort of shuffle that adjusted his stride so he could hit the lights on the way out, the tick was flattened under his shoe and was spread over the tile floor.

  In the bedroom, Broussard sat on the bed and took off his shoes. The cracks in the soles of his feet were not as severe as last year, but they still gave him a twinge as he briefly massaged and kneaded his tired toes. He then undressed and put his dirty clothing in the hamper by category—socks in the bag on the side, shirts in the rear compartment, pants in the middle, underwear in the front. He slipped into his pajamas and returned to the bathroom to brush his teeth. In doing so, he stepped squarely on the tick’s still-wet remains.

  15

  A vehicle pulled to a stop in front of Kit. Roy yanked her forward. She heard a latch thrown and the sound of doors opening. Before they’d blindfolded her the morning of her abduction, she’d seen that they drove a white panel truck. It seemed likely this was the same vehicle. She couldn’t tell because she was blindfolded again. This time, though, Roy had not hidden her blindfold with a big hat and her bound wrists with a coat, probably because the streets at this hour were deserted.

  “Get in,” Roy said, nudging her. “Then lie down.”

  Her feet were free, but her hands were still bound behind her, so she had to crawl into the truck without using them. She had no idea where they were going and couldn’t ask, because Larry had stuffed a terry-cloth headband in her mouth and had sealed it in with a strip of duct tape.

  At first, the headband had rested so near her throat, it gagged her, but she’d gradually used her throat muscles to work it forward a bit, so now it was merely an obnoxious fuzzy ball in her mouth, sucking up every bit of moisture.

  “Hurry . . . get down,” Roy urged.

  Sh
e dropped onto her butt with a jolt that rattled her teeth, then went down on her side, her shoulder absorbing the force when she hit. Roy set about retying her feet. She was sure now it was the same truck, at least it bore the same repulsive tomcat odor.

  She hadn’t seen Teddy since Larry had taken him back to the bedroom. The rest of them had eaten in the front room and Roy had then read The Old Man and the Sea aloud to Larry and her for nearly three hours, during which his voice showed no effects of its prolonged use. When she’d suggested they watch the news, Roy had vetoed it, saying television was a corrupt medium.

  At ten o’clock, Roy had declared that everyone should get some sleep, and Larry had retied her hands and feet. Instead of being returned to the bedroom with Teddy, she’d been assigned the sofa. Roy and Larry had taken the second bedroom.

  With the discomfort of being all trussed up, the need to figure out some method of escape, and the hope that she’d hear something encouraging on the police scanner Larry had left on in their bedroom at night, she’d stayed awake for quite a while, then miraculously had dozed off. She’d been awakened by the feel of Larry’s hand between her thighs.

  He’d tried to stifle her scream with a hand over her mouth, but she’d bitten him. Then Roy had stormed into the room and thrown Larry off her. It was then that Roy told Larry to get the truck and bring it to the Decatur gate, which meant the trailer was accessible from either French Market Place or Decatur, for whatever that was worth.

  “All right, go around the block while I get the other one,” Roy said. “And don’t run any lights or stop signs.”

  The rear doors slammed shut and the truck took off.

  “I don’t know why you made such a big deal about me touching you,” Larry said over the sound of the police scanner, which he’d brought along. “It’s not as though you’ve never been touched there before. What would it have hurt? I’d about decided it wasn’t your fault about the cap, and then you had to do that. So don’t count on me to take up for you later.”

  PHIL GATLIN STARTED HIS car and eased it away from the curb. He’d been sitting for over an hour on Burgundy Street between Touro and Frenchmen—the location where the strangulation victim had been found—watching for anyone whose routine might have brought them by this spot around the time the body was dumped. But the only people he’d seen were Sally Harmon, waitress at a nearby bar, and Carl Letcher, a zydeco musician who worked at Mulate’s, over by the Convention Center. Both had already been interviewed by Jake Evans.

  He dug in his shirt pocket for a Rolaids and vowed to cut back on his coffee consumption. It’d been a crummy day, during which he hadn’t detected shit, having been unable even to figure out where the hell Teddy Labiche was. Teddy was still registered at the Royal Sonesta, but he hadn’t answered the phone all evening, and when Gatlin had dropped over there around 11:00 P.M. and gotten the management to open his room, nothing appeared out of the ordinary, except he wasn’t there. Considering the circumstances, it didn’t seem as if he’d be having a night on the town. So where was he?

  In his frustration, Gatlin wondered if maybe Teddy had gone to Kit’s place and something had happened to him there. It was only a few blocks away and easy enough to check.

  LARRY TURNED ANOTHER CORNER, drove for a minute or so, then cornered again. He quickly made one more turn, drove for perhaps half a minute, then stopped. The rear doors were quickly yanked open.

  “Inside, Ted . . . and lie down. Watch out for Kit.”

  Teddy got in and arranged himself on the floor beside Kit. Roy retied Teddy’s feet and closed the doors. A few seconds later, Kit heard Roy get into the passenger seat and buckle his seat belt.

  “Hook up, Larry. You two in the back stay quiet or I’ll quiet you for good.”

  There had to be a lot of reasons why Roy would haul them out this late, but the only one Kit could think of was that he’d decided to kill them now. She scooted close to Teddy and sought his fingers, which, unlike her own, were warm and dry. The thought of meekly accepting her death was so disgusting, she decided that the first time she heard a car next to them at a traffic light, she’d throw herself into the front seats and try to kick the window out.

  But then Roy said, “I hope Jack just underestimated the postal service.”

  With this, Kit realized they weren’t about to die, at least not yet. They were going to check her mail.

  GATLIN SLIPPED HIS CAR into the only available space on the street and killed the engine. He helped himself to a pair of rubber gloves from the box on the seat beside him, shoved them into his pocket, and got out. He crossed the street and walked down to Kit’s gate, where he pressed the button above the mail slot and waited to see if anyone would answer.

  LARRY MADE A RIGHT on Ursulines, turning so sharply, Kit and Teddy slid in that direction. “Take it easy,” Roy cautioned. “We’re in no hurry.” The heat from the truck’s exhaust system had begun to warm the carpet, so that in back, the stench of tomcat was growing worse.

  GETTING NO ANSWER, GATLIN picked the lock and let himself in, making sure the gate locked behind him. He walked through the parking alcove, entered the courtyard, and surveyed the house, which, except for some illuminated green plastic toadstools in the flower bed, was quiet and dark. Standing there, Gatlin was struck once again by the indifference of the physical world to violence. Kit had been forcefully abducted, perhaps even . . . He didn’t want to admit it, but she might even have been murdered here, but the fireflies didn’t care, the crickets didn’t care, the jasmine still smelled the same, the bricks in the courtyard hadn’t changed, and the toadstool lights still burned. Only people cared—and not very many of them. It just didn’t seem right.

  AT DAUPHINE STREET, LARRY turned left. They were now only a block from Kit’s house.

  “When you get there,” Roy said, “drive slowly past her place, then take a right on Dumaine and stop just around the corner.”

  A few seconds later, as they passed Kit’s home, Roy studied her gates and the parking alcove, looking for any signs of a stakeout. He also checked the cars lining the curb to make sure they weren’t occupied. There was no reason for the cops to believe he’d come back here, but it was always best to anticipate trouble, even if it seemed unlikely.

  GATLIN HEARD AN ENGINE out front and he wondered why the driver was moving so slowly. But then it went on by and he turned his attention back to the house. Now that he was here, it seemed even more unlikely Teddy was inside. And there was also the possibility the house was dangerously contaminated. Remembering how over the years some real long shots had paid big dividends, he slipped on the rubber gloves and picked the lock on the front door, causing the house to light up inside. He’d learned the code for shutting off the alarm system from Bubba when he’d toured the house earlier, so he had no trouble disarming it now. He then began a roomto-room search.

  THE TRUCK ROUNDED THE corner, with Roy satisfied that they were in no danger. Even so, he wasn’t about to put himself on the spot. He held Kit’s key ring out to Larry. “The mail drop is just inside the small gate on the left. Grab whatever you find and do it fast. And be sure to lock the gate behind you.”

  “Which one is it?” Larry said, taking the keys.

  “You’ll have to try them and see. Stay in your seat until I come around.”

  Roy left the truck, circled to Larry’s side, and got in the driver’s seat when Larry got out. Larry then disappeared around the corner.

  Roy turned the volume down on the scanner. He put the truck in reverse and backed up so he could look down Kit’s street. Because of the parking alcove, he was not aware of the lights in Kit’s house.

  Hands in his pockets, Larry strolled to Kit’s gate and began trying keys.

  It wasn’t the big brass key with the square head or the chrome-plated one or the short one, so it had to be . . . The key with the round shaft slid into the lock and levered the bolt back with liquid ease. The gate emitted a tiny friction squeal that echoed in the parking alcove as i
t opened, but there was no one to hear it, so what difference did it make?

  Larry slipped through and went to the mail basket. Bending quickly, he emptied it and darted back onto the street. The echo of the gate closing behind him died away just as Gatlin finished his search and came out of the house.

  Gatlin paused and cocked his head, his hand still around the front doorknob. Had he heard something? He listened hard, trying to filter out the boisterous cricket noise.

  Deciding that the sound had been an illusion and remembering that the house lights were still on, he leaned inside and flicked off the master switch.

  On the way out, he paused at the mail basket and looked in. Obviously, Kit didn’t order much from catalogs. There’d been two mail deliveries since she’d disappeared yet the basket was empty. Two days of mail at his house would keep the fire in a woodstove burning for a week.

  “THAT’S ALL THERE IS,” Larry said, tossing three catalogs and a couple of sales circulars on the seat.

  “Too bad,” Roy replied, punching the gas.

  DUMAINE WAS A ONE-WAY street away from the heart of the Quarter, so there was no reason for Gatlin to look to his right as he crossed it on his way back to Canal. Even had he done so, all he would have seen would have been Roy’s taillights, so far away they would have resembled synchronous twin fireflies.

  TEDDY HAD BEEN IN the back bedroom when Roy had said there’d be a penalty for every day the money wasn’t in the mail, so he didn’t have that to worry about. It was foremost, though, in Kit’s thoughts.

  What kind of penalty? Surely he wouldn’t apply any penalty to this trip. In the lie she’d told, the money wasn’t even supposed to show up until tomorrow. She continued to worry about this until she realized they’d been driving long enough to be back at the trailer. They drove about ten minutes more, then stopped.

  Roy got out and opened the rear doors. Because of the tomcat odor, Kit had been breathing shallowly. Now, provided with some fresh air, she took a deep breath.