by Joe Gores
Maman trudged up the path to level ground. Vangie’s boat was just disappearing around a bend in the river downstream. The diminishing whine of the motor faded away as she went back into the store, picked up the attache case and carelessly stuffed it under the front counter before going back to tend her gumbo.
At Henderson’s Crossroads, a big four-door sedan came along the blacktop road and stopped just short of the steel bridge. To the left a seafood restaurant was built over the water, with the inevitable checker-playing geezers on the galerie. To the right another road went off on the levee parallel to the bayou.
Trask, behind the wheel, said, “You wanna ask which—”
“We ask no one anything,” snapped Maxton. “I’ll drive from here on. I have directions. First, over the bridge, then take a right along the top of the levee…”
22
Inverness got back into their boat, went to the rear seat. Dain cast them off, jumped in as the old Cajun who wasn’t named Broussard turned away with a wave of his hand.
“Third time unlucky,” Dain said.
Long afternoon shadows were reaching across the swamp. Inverness was setting the start lever on the motor. He shrugged.
“If we don’t find ‘em tonight, we’ll come back in the morning by car, get Vangie’s statement, be on our way…”
The boat had started to drift downstream. Inverness was about to start the motor, but Dain held up a hand to stop him.
“Unless somebody gets her first. Zimmer wasn’t a suicide.”
“What the hell are you—”
“Some hard boys from Chicago were all over the Vieux Carré looking for them yesterday. Last night, Zimmer ended up dead. Maybe Vangie couldn’t have done it, but a couple of strongarms could have stuffed him in that bathtub easy enough.”
“Without marking him up? A man fighting for his life?” Inverness shook his head doggedly. “No way.”
He turned back to the motor, but Dain spoke again.
“You shove him in the tub, grab him by the hair, hold his head under.” Inverness was watching him, so he added appropriate gestures. “He grabs your arm, fighting you, but this gives your backup man a chance to slash his wrist. Clean, one stroke. Now he’s bleeding to death, even while he’s fighting for air.” Another gesture. “Zip! The other wrist. Then you let go of the head so he bleeds to death instead of drowns. Instant suicide.”
“You seem to have given this a lot of thought,” said Inverness slowly, as if ideas and questions were moving ponderously about in his mind.
Dain said, “Their room had been searched.”
“Dammit, that I don’t believe! My men would have noticed if there had been anything—”
“Your men weren’t looking.”
Inverness turned back to the motor, seemed to address it.
“You have anything else?”
Dain gave a low chuckle. “My hunter’s intuition.”
Inverness looked back at him, started to chuckle with him, then suddenly got serious, with an odd expression on his face.
“You trust that really?”
The door crashed open against the wall, the two attackers were framed in it. One of them, sunglasses, curly hair. The other, ski-masked so no hair showed.
Details of only shadowy recall previously. Was memory coming back, after five long years?
“With my life,” Dain said fervently.
The big sedan came to a stop on the gravel at the dirt turnoff to Broussard’s Store, about a hundred yards shy of the deerhound pen. No one was visible, nothing was moving.
“So, whadda we do?” asked Trask.
“Wait,” said Maxton.
“For what?” asked Nicky from the backseat.
“Dark.”
The shadows were getting long across the brown reach of Bayou Tremblant. Vangie’s boat had been pulled into shore a bit downstream from the bend where Papa had run out his trotline. The water was slow enough here for the line, known locally as a float line because it was supported at intervals by cork floats, to run out at a right angle to the current.
Papa was in the blunt prow of his flat-bottom scow, Vangie on the stern seat. Papa, a short fierce bristling man, very French, was pulling them along the line, checking the hooks hung from the main line at three-foot intervals on shorter, lighter lines called stagings.
Almost every hook had a catfish on it. Papa removed them, tossed them into a big wash bucket full of water. Vangie was rebaiting each hook, using the heads of large shad as her cut-bait. Both were quick and expert at the work. Vangie’s face was intent but serene, Papa was grinning with delight as he pulled them along the line.
“De bes’ day I have all spring, Vangie.”
“I’ve brought you luck, Papa,” she said gaily.
“Havin’ you home make Papa so happy he wanna bust, him.”
Vangie was silent, thoughtful. “It’s good to be home, Papa, but I hate to see you work so hard.”
Papa laughed. “Not hard, do what you love. It doan make much money, but what you wan’ Papa to do?” His laughter had turned to indignation. “Go drive a truck? Pump ‘pane in New Orleans? Work on a oil rig with les Texiens, him?” He shook his grizzled narrow head. “Time all you got b’longs to you, just you alone. So you gotta use that time lak you wan’.”
In a sudden terrifying moment, Vangie realized that she had never really planned out what she would do with the bonds. She’d stolen them more to get back at Maxton than for the money… Oh, some fuzzy thoughts about tropic isles, the great cities of Europe, the pyramids along the Nile, Japan, Hong Kong, freedom—but mainly it had been, at first, just taking them, and then just getting away with them. Not much beyond that.
Maybe poor Jimmy had been right. Maybe they should have cashed them in and just started running and living and loving with the money, until Maxton eventually, inevitably caught up…
But no, she’d thought only of escape. Now Jimmy was dead. He would never escape. She had the bonds but was afraid to cash them.
No. Not afraid. She knew now, without hesitation or question, what she would do with them. She would cash them somewhere far away, then send her parents the money. If Maxton did ever catch up with her, he would never be led back here to the bayous and to them.
“What if someone gave you money, Papa? A lot of money?”
“Doan want a lotta money,” he said with fierce pride. “I do my life damn good, me! Got all I need. Your maman, good hounds, good fishin’, food huntin’, dis bayou…”
They had worked their way across the channel to the far shore. He let the cleaned and rebaited line drop back into the water. Vangie watched him hungrily, as if trying to figure out the secret of life that he had and that she had lost.
“Dat de las’ hook,” he said happily. “We go home now.”
It was dusk. The three men watched Maman as she removed the last of the dried laundry from the line. She picked up the big wash basket and, leaning sideways to counterbalance its weight, went to the back door of the living area and disappeared. Two minutes later she emerged with a brimming bucket of scraps for the hounds. They flowed around her in an excited river of silky tan and white backs, yelping and barking and whining, ravenous as only dogs can be.
“That old broad don’t never stop working,” said Nicky. “Probably outlive us all.”
“Wanta give odds on that?” asked Trask, and laughed.
She returned to the house and the lights went on. Maxton got out of the car, followed by the other two. They walked down the road to the store, climbed the creaky wooden steps to the equally creaky galerie. Maxton stopped, Nicky and Trask went through the screen door, it slammed its three diminishing times behind them, tinkling the bell.
Maman trudged up from the rear, beaming. Her expression changed when she saw the two men and Maxton outside.
“Cold beer,” said Trask.
Maman jerked her head. There was suspicion in her manner. “In de back. In de cooler ‘gainst de back wall.”
&nbs
p; Trask went down the aisle out of sight. Nicky took out some folding money, offered her a $50 bill, thereby keeping her at the front of the store.
“Got nuthin’ smaller, you?” she asked.
Nicky dug around in his billfold, came up with a twenty.
“For three of them,” he said.
Maman made change. Trask came up the store holding all three icy bottles of beer in his left hand, the necks between his curled fingers.
“We’ll drink ‘em here.” said Nicky.
“Mebbe you leave dem empties in de crate on de porch, non?”
On the galerie they gave Maxton his beer, and all three men moved to the front edge of the porch beside the steps. They could not readily be heard from inside. They stood in a row in their town clothes, facing out, drinking their cold beers.
“I went through the place,” Trask said. “She’s alone in there now, but the clothes I saw on a fucking blonde snatch at the New Orleans bus depot was lying on the bed.”
“Blonde, huh? A wig and she gets past you,” said Maxton in a low snarly voice. He stopped and spread his hands. “No matter. She’s been here, we’re here now, we’ll ask where…”
A car came down the dirt track from the gravel to stop in front of the store. Two Cajun fishermen got out and crossed toward the trio on the galerie. Sunset was flushing the sky over the trees to the west with delicate violet and rose pink.
“Nice sunset,” said Maxton to the fishermen as they started up to the steps.
“Tu dis,” said one.
They went by, into the store. Maxton said, “Get us another round of beers, Nicky. It looks like we’ll be here a while.”
Papa’s scow, silhouetted against the gold and crimson sky, was towing Vangie’s empty boat across an open area of marsh. Vangie, in the prow of Papa’s boat, was twisted around forward so the wind was in her face. The motor was a thin steady throb; a big heron flapped by over them in spindly dignity. Vangie looked up at a trio of wood ducks whistling by overhead, then looked back at her father. She laughed. He laughed. There was sheer shared delight in both of their faces.
Beertown was a tavern in Henderson where students from the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette came to drink beer during the school year. There were fishing nets with cork floats strung on the walls, a couple of open muskrat traps on display, a warmouth bass mounted behind the bar, a juke and a shuffleboard and a lot of undistinguished country music, which is why the college kids liked it.
School was out for the summer, so it was once more Cajun country. At the bar a group of young bucks, Minus among them, was drinking beer. The bartender, Ta-Tese, was their age and obviously one of them.
“Eh la bas, Minus,” he said. “Your roun’.”
Minus checked his watch, nodded. “Tu dis.”
Ta-Tese got fresh beers all around from the cooler, plunked them down on the bar. He winked at the other Cajuns.
“Why you honor us comin’ roun’ here to do your drinkin’?”
Minus drank from the bottle neck like they all did.
“Dat Vangie, she back from de big city.”
Cojo exclaimed “Pensez-donc!” in wonder. “Dat was one pretty girl, her. What she lak after all dese years, man?”
Minus couldn’t resist making a whistling mouth and waving one hand as if he had just slammed it in the door.
“Poo-ya-yi! Dat some woman!” Then he laughed and punched Cojo on the shoulder. “An’ she invite me to come out to de store tonight, drink beer wit her and her folks.” He set his empty bottle on the counter, slapped some money down beside it for the round of beers. “Henderson is closer to Broussard’s Store an’ Vangie den Lafayette is. And dat’s why Minus honors you by comin’ round here tonight fo’ a beer.”
He started for the door laughing at their envious faces. Until she had dropped out at the age of sixteen, Vangie had been just about the hottest number their high school had ever seen.
23
The Cajuns emerged from Broussard’s Store in the deepening dusk, one carrying a six-pack, the other a paper bag. Maxton, Nicky, and Trask were over by the edge of the porch, putting their empties in the wooden crate left there for that purpose.
They covertly watched the others depart.
“Nicky, stay out here in case anyone else comes.”
Maxton and Trask went in, their entry jingling the little bell merrily. Maman hurried from the living quarters, went behind the front counter. Her face was flushed from cooking.
“You want a couple more beers, you?” she asked brightly.
“We want your daughter,” said Maxton.
Maman leaned on her elbows and locked her eyes on the network sitcom feed now coming in on the blurry little TV, thus further concealing the attaché case with her body should any of them come around behind the counter.
“Go off ten year ago, her,” she said.
“Come back today, her,” said Maxton harshly.
“We want your daughter Vangie, goddammit!” yelled Trask. He loved this stuff. It excited him.
“No see her, ten year.”
Maxton slapped her explosively across the face. Maman cowered back against the wall, her hands up to protect herself from a beating. Maxton made a disgusted gesture and went back toward the living area. Trask took over, carelessly.
“Tell us now, you old sow, or I’ll hurt you bad.”
He reached for her, and clawed hands flashed out to rip down his cheeks. Trask reeled back, yelling, his face pouring blood as Maman ducked under his arm and was gone. He crashed after her, toppling merchandise to right and left. Maxton emerged from the living area.
“What the hell’s going on?”
“Fucking old bitch clawed my face.”
“Well, at least you were right about the clothes, Trask—I remember that outfit from Chicago. Now go find the old lady. She can’t get by Nicky on the front and I’ll cover here.”
Crouching behind a rack of hunting clothes, Maman jerked down the circuit breaker. Instant darkness.
Maxton’s voice wobbled with earnestness. “Goddam her!”
Red and green running lights glowed out to the side of Papa’s flatboat as it approached the landing. The wake curled palely in the near darkness. He turned the throttle, the motor dropped in pitch, the boat slowed. He reached back to keep Vangie’s towed flatboat from running over them as he cut the motor and the keel grated on the bank. Vangie jumped ashore.
“We put the fish in the live-box, Papa?”
“Tu dis,” he grinned.
He heard the mooring chain clink as Vangie wrapped it around the tree, could dimly see the open padlock in her hand.
He shook his head. “No, de chain hol’ her, good-good.” He had a big rich laugh for such a small, feisty man. “Bet Maman got one great big gumbo waitin’!”
Maman was in the bait room using both hands to hold a large scoop net submerged in one of the live-bait tanks. A sudden flashlight beam hit her square in the face. She crouched, tensed like a trapped bobcat, did everything but hiss.
In a satisfied voice, Trask called, “I got the old bitch.”
And the scoop net full of live wriggling shad slammed into his face. He crashed down on his back, flashlight flying, as Maman ran right over him up the stairs.
The dim battery-powered light in the cricket box at the front of the store had not gone out with the other lights. Maxton saw Maman scuttling from the bait room, a dark figure moving between him and that dim light. She ducked around behind the front counter, grabbed the attaché case, jerked open the screen door—and ran right into Nicky.
Trask stumbled up to grab her with savage pleasure.
“She’s fucking mine!” he exclaimed.
Nicky hissed, “Someone’s coming.”
Trask slapped a hand over Maman’s mouth, dragged her to the back of the store. Her eyes gleamed over his hand like those of a ferret in a trap. Maxton put the attaché case on the counter.
“Just keep quiet,” he said to Nicky in a
low voice. “With the lights out, they’ll probably go away.”
Papa’s approaching voice said, “… an’ catfish gettin’ more a pound than they ever got.”
“That’s wonderful, Papa,” said Vangie’s voice.
Maxton hissed at Nicky, “That’s her! Quiet…”
Vangie stopped abruptly. “The lights are out, Papa.” “Fous pas mal. Dat Maman, she in back makin’ supper, her.”
Without hesitation he went up the steps and across the porch. Maxton could see Papa’s silhouette appear in the paleoblong of the screen door. Papa came in, tinkling the bell. Vangie was coming warily a few steps behind him.
Maman twisted so her mouth was momentarily uncovered.
“Prenez garde!” she yelled.
Trask’s hand jerked her head savagely the other way, there was a loud snap and it remained over at the grotesque angle. Her eyes were wide and staring. Nicky jumped Papa, but her cry had alerted him, he was no easy prey for the strongarm. They went over sideways into the cricket box, smashing it to pieces.
Papa found breath to yell, “Vangie! Run!”
She grabbed the case as Maxton grabbed her. Kicking and clawing fiercely, she twisted free, slammed the screen door wide and was off the edge of the galerie with the attaché case. Maxton tried to do the same, his left foot came down in thin air, and he did a tremendous front flip off the edge of the porch.
Papa had a grim two-handed bulldog grip on Nicky’s ankle, but Trask slammed him beside the head with his gun butt, followed him down, smashing again and again until Nicky dragged him away.
“C’mon, for Chrissake, the old guy’s finished.”
Vangie slid down the bank in pale moonlight like an otter down a mud slide. There was mist over the water. She jumped into her father’s boat, snapped shut the padlock on the chain around the tree, ran down to the stern. Hand-over-handed up her scow on the towrope. She threw in the attaché case, jerked open the slipknot on the towrope.
“Here! She’s here!” yelled a badly limping Maxton when he saw her below just about to jump into the flatboat.