“Are you sure we shouldn’t take him to a doctor? He’s already lost a lot of blood.”
Dolly zeroed in on me with red-rimmed eyes. “Haven’t you done enough for one night? You got a problem, go in the other room. I done this plenty of times before, and no one’s died on me yet. Isn’t that right, Gonzales?”
Gonzales nodded his head in agreement as she handed him the bottle of Southern Comfort, which he eagerly pressed to his lips.
Cutting away the jeans soaked with blood, Dolly sliced into skin, digging at the birdshot lodged in his thigh. Reasonably sure that I wouldn’t be missed, I took Dolly up on her suggestion and fled down the hall. The kitchen was a jumble of pots and pans stacked in a delicate balance, one inside the other on top of her stove. On the table was a half-filled glass of Southern Comfort sitting in a puddle of water, the ice melted to a chip that lazily floated on top. Next to it, the remains of a frozen dinner had coagulated into a hardened generic lump. Continuing on down the hall, I saw holes that had been knocked in walls and doors torn from their hinges, adding weight to the legend of Trenton’s notorious temper.
I glanced into one room where I could see dark, brooding paintings of the bayou. My interest piqued, I stepped inside and turned on the light. Paneled in cheap plywood, the room held a convertible sofa with a pair of dirty sneakers sticking out from beneath its frame. A baseball mitt was tossed in one corner and a poster of rocker Jim Morrison hung on the closet door. But what drew my attention was the photo gallery of family history, tacked to the plywood walls. In one snapshot, Trenton and a young boy stood beside a gator they had killed, while Dolly was posed with the boy in another, both holding fishing poles in their hands. A montage showed the same boy grown older, a rebellious teenager studiously bored, a cigarette dangling from his lips and a young Valerie Vaughn clinging to his arm. I realized this must have been their son Dale’s room, and opened the closet door to peer at a rack of old cotton shirts and worn-out jeans. Going over to a bureau, I gave my curiosity free rein, poking through tee shirts and shorts that still retained their musky scent. I was about to stop when I spied a blue satin box, and knew what I’d stumbled onto before my fingers even opened the lid. A silent ballerina sprang to life, her pink plastic legs pirouetting round and round Valerie’s golden bracelet with its three tiny charms. But something new lay next to it on the bed of satin. I picked up the locket I hadn’t seen before, and flipped open the lid. A portrait of Fifi stared back up at me. Before I could fully comprehend all that it meant, Dolly’s voice boomed down the hall.
“Hey, Porter! I need help in here!”
Holding on to the locket, I slid the box back into place, shutting the drawer behind it, and quickly began to head out of the room. But in my rush to leave, my feet tripped over the dirty sneakers sticking out from under the couch. They flew across the floor as I scrambled after them. I hurriedly tried to put them back in their place, but something beneath the couch blocked my way. Kneeling down to shove them back under, I caught sight of a tripod and video camera concealed beneath the frame. Dolly screamed out for me again, as I froze in place at the implications of what I had found. But the sound of approaching footsteps quickly brought me to my feet. Turning off the light, I walked out and smacked straight into Dolly. Blood was splattered on her apron, and the stiletto knife was still in her hand.
“What the hell were you doing in there, Porter?”
I shoved my hands in my pockets, hiding Dolores’s locket from her view.
“I saw some paintings hanging up and wanted to take a closer look.”
Dolly brushed past me, closing the door to the room. “This ain’t no museum, and I didn’t invite you to snoop through my house.”
I followed her out to where Gonzales lay fully bandaged, with an empty bottle of bourbon by his side. Dolly wiped her hands and the knife on an old kitchen towel, mixing fresh blood in with brown gravy stains.
“Help me take him into another room.”
Between the two of us, we carried Gonzales into a small bedroom, where a large wooden crucifix of Jesus gazed down compassionately on the mattress below. Gonzales lay awake, his flesh the color of chalk against the sheets, his eyes glazed from liquor and pain as they watched me closely. Turning toward Dolly, I began to guess who Valerie’s conspirator in blackmail had been.
“I have to head back out to the swamp to get my car. If it’s all right with Gonzales, I’ll take his truck. Somebody can swing by tomorrow and pick it up.”
Dolly stared at me a moment before pinning her hair back in place, the dark roots exposed at the base of her neck. “Leave the truck here. I’ll take you myself.”
Gonzales reached out a hand toward me. “Chère, you gonna go look for Trentone an’ Charlie?”
I wondered the same thing myself. “I want to. I’m just not sure where to begin.”
Taking hold of my hand, Gonzales turned my palm faceup, and traced two pathways along the lines in my skin.
“You see dese two lines, de way dey branch off? We took dis one. Now you try dis one. It lead you to Charlie an’ Trentone. You trust Gonzales.”
My heart sank as I tried to follow his directions along the wrinkles in my hand.
“I’ll do my best, Gonzales.”
“I know you will, chère. Lache pas la patate.”
My rudimentary knowledge of French roughly translated this into “Don’t let go of the potato.” It made no sense, and I didn’t want to stop to ask what he meant. My mind was still reeling from the discovery I had made in the room at the end of the hall.
I settled into Dolly’s pink Cadillac as she popped in a Waylon Jennings tape and cranked up the sound. Any suspicions about what I might have found in Dale’s room were masked behind a stone-cold face as we took off down the dirt road. I wondered how much Trenton knew about his wife’s extracurricular activities. And now, I had yet another suspect who might have set Dolores up. Dolly remained silent as the music blared loud, jarring the silence of night. Trying to start a dialogue with her was like playing a game of Russian roulette—short and foolish—but I decided to give it a try.
“Would you let Charlie and Trenton know that I headed home in case I miss them? I’ll fill them in on what happened when I catch up with them in the morning.”
Her eyes stayed dead ahead, but the muscles tightened around her mouth, the ebb and flow of moonlight creating heavy shadows on the planes of her face.
“You think I’m your personal messenger service, princess?”
I reached over and lowered the volume a few notches. “You don’t like me very much, do you, Dolly?”
“You got that right. There’s some bad shit going on in these bayous. Always has been. But Trenton and me were doing just fine the way we were. Trenton had his fun playing games with Charlie Hickok, and everybody knew the rules. We kept the lid on trouble. Till you came along—you’ve changed all that, princess.”
Her headlights locked onto a nutria scampering in front of our path, and she swerved the wheel to try and hit it.
“You’ve opened a real can of worms, and you don’t even know it. Should I be thanking you for that?”
I braced my hand against the dashboard as her car swerved back to the left. “Was that why your son died, Dolly? Because he played by the rules? Was that keeping the lid on trouble?”
Dolly was silent for a moment. “Dale was a bunch of damn heartache. But he was my boy, and I loved him. Nothing can ever change that, just like nothing can ever change the fact that he’s dead.”
She turned to stare at me, slamming on her brakes. “You got any kids?”
“No.”
“Then you got no idea what the hell I’m talking about.”
Jamming her foot back down on the accelerator, she sent the Cadillac jerking forward again. Dolly turned the volume all the way back up, so that Waylon roared as we hit the blacktop. I found myself screaming above the music in order to be heard.
“You know, I’m not the one who talked Trenton into getting i
nvolved in this. He seems to have his own reasons for wanting to nail Hillard Williams.”
“Yeah. And you just want to find out who killed some fucking gator, isn’t that right? Don’t try to sucker me, princess. You’ll use whoever you can. You’re out to prove yourself the hotshot on the block. Well, let me tell you that if you think you’re going to end the drug trade in the bayous, you’re in for one hell of a surprise. You’ll just be the latest in a long line of fish bait, which is all right with me. I already lost my son, and now Valerie. You just better hope you don’t take my husband down with you.”
Dolly made a hard right onto the dirt road that led down to my car. Her assessment of my character gnawed at me. It bothered me enough to make me feel I had to justify my actions.
“Listen, gators are still being poached by the truckload down here, and I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s all tied in with the drug trade. Doesn’t what’s happening matter to you, Dolly? Your son is dead. So is Valerie. There have to be hundreds of others just like them back in this swamp. If Hillard Williams is involved in this, so is the New York mob. They’re getting rich off hooking these kids on crack and cocaine, and shipping the rest up to New York. It has to be stopped.”
Dolly glanced at me and sneered. “And you’re just the one to do it, right, princess?”
I reached over and shut off the tape. “And what have you been doing about it, Dolly?”
“I was handling it my own way, Porter. I was doing just fine taking care of Hillard Williams, till you started shoving your nose in where it doesn’t belong. You Yankees are so damn dumb, thinking you can come down here and jump in with both feet. There are other ways to get things done, hotshot.”
We were almost at the swamp, and I was running out of time to confirm my suspicions.
“How is that, Dolly? By blackmailing Williams and Kroll with some sex tapes? Valerie just might have you to thank for getting her killed. What were you doing, anyway, besides grabbing a few grimy dollars off the man who probably murdered your son?”
Pulling in close to my car, Dolly leaned across and opened the passenger door. Sitting back, she kept her face only inches from mine, the booze still strong on her breath. “That tape was sent to you as a warning, princess. Don’t you know that nothing’s ever gonna change around here? Valerie’s death proved that to me. I was doing you a favor by showing you what you were up against. Hell, you’ve got the next mayor of New Orleans backed up by the chief of police. I was trying to help save your life and my husband’s along with it, you stupid bitch.”
I got out of the car as Dolly leaned still farther across the seat.
“Hey, princess. I got another tape to dig out for you. It’s one you’ll really like. It’s got that detective friend of yours on it. See, he used to come around to visit Valerie, too. He started off asking a bunch of questions, but then he got to staying for dessert. Hell, it got to the point that’s all he began coming for. In fact, I’ve got some of Valerie’s best work on those tapes. Maybe it’ll give you some pointers. She always had the most fun with him. Has he been good for you, too?”
Dolly didn’t wait for an answer as she pulled the door closed. Shifting into reverse, her car churned up a mound of loose gravel, spitting out a trail of hazy dust as she tore down the road and disappeared around the first bend.
I walked over to the edge of the swamp, and, leaning in toward the cattails, threw up what little I’d eaten that day.
Eighteen
The revelation that Dolly had been the one to send me the videotape answered my question as to who Valerie’s partner had been. But other questions were still piled up like dead bodies at a morgue. I slumped behind the steering wheel, my hands shaking from too much soda and candy and too little sleep. I tried hard not to think about Santou. I suspected every word she said was true. All I knew was that I was dead tired of thinking, and more than anything else, I just wanted to go home, go to sleep, and not ever dream again. I put my head down on the wheel, ready to burst into tears, when a hand reached out from behind the front seat and clamped itself hard on my shoulder.
“Where the goddamn hell you been, Bronx?”
I shrieked and jumped, then turned around to see Charlie Hickok. Having been scrunched down on my backseat, he was struggling to work his way into an upright position.
“I’ve been spending all night nearly getting myself killed looking for you, Charlie!” I barked at the man who I should have been happier to see than anyone else in the world.
Hickok let loose a chuckle as he played with the bill of his cap. “You mean that was your lil ol’ bonfire I seen over in the distance? You’ve been busy tonight, Bronx. You can tell me all about it in the boat. Let’s get the lead out.”
Charlie’s motorboat was tied up next to the one I’d stepped out of only a few hours earlier. I was no longer so anxious to head back out into the swamp, having had more than my share of adventure for one evening. Or, to use one of Charlie’s phrases, I felt as if I’d been stonewashed and hung out to dry. I stalled to give myself some time.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be out with Trenton.”
Charlie untied the boat from its stump. “Hell, I been out there all night poking around. But things are just about to heat up now, so I thought I’d cut you some slack and deal you in on the action. Give you a taste of what real agents do.”
Charlie stood up and waited for me to jump into the boat. “That is, unless you don’t wanna be an agent no more, Bronx. What is it? Make your mind up real quick, cause I don’t have no time to waste on slackards.”
I thought of New York and what my life had been. The auditions, the angst, one heartbreaking relationship after another. In a sense, it didn’t seem as if anything had really changed all that much. But if I didn’t follow through with this, it would be one more failure I’d have to live with. And then where would I go? Besides, I’d already become hooked on the adrenaline rushes, being in on the hunt, and the feeling that I was at least attempting to do something worthwhile.
I looked over at the man who’d fought both outlaws and the system every step of the way, dressed in his fatigues and duck-billed cap, handing out approval about as willingly as he would a hundred-dollar bill, and it struck me as the ultimate irony. Some people had their gurus, their shrinks, or their plastic surgeons. I had Charlie Hickok. Shaking myself out of the stupor that had overtaken me, I silently damned whatever forces had brought me to doubt myself and my work. I headed toward the boat.
“Get a move on it, Bronx. The night is young, and we got huntin’ to do.”
Charlie pulled out two Baby Ruths and threw me one as I took my place on the wooden seat in front of him. The motor on his boat burped in unison with the bullfrogs as we slipped away from land and headed into the swamp. This time I told Charlie everything I knew, filling him in on the tie-in I’d made between Pasta Nostra, Buddy’s clubs on Bourbon, his fish-packing plant, and the connection with the all-encompassing Global Corporation.
Charlie sniffed at the air before turning down a narrow offshoot of water. “Global is right. Those boys are screwing up all over the damn place. That Sabino ain’t nothin’ but a straight-up hoodlum, who’d as soon snuff you out in a New York second as give you the time of day. Hillard’s got himself back in it but good, this time.”
There was something eerily familiar about this fingerway of the swamp, which made me wonder if I’d been down this route before. The faint sulfuric smell of fire still lingered in the air. Charlie took the last bite of his candy bar, and I handed him the unfinished half of mine. He crunched up the empty wrapper and the crinkling shot through me like machine-gun fire, causing every nerve in my body to stand on end.
“Little jumpy tonight ain’t ya, Bronx? Must be Budwell gettin’ to ya.” Charlie chuckled softly. “That Buddy’s always been an el kooko kooko with that Nazi stuff. But up till now it’s all been fun and games. Still, I guess it had to go over the edge sometime. So, those good ol’ boys have b
een holding their meetings back here, huh?”
“Those good ol’ boys nearly killed Gonzales and me tonight.”
“The key word here, Bronx, is almost. You’re still alive, ain’t ya? Calm down. You’ll live longer.”
I concentrated on listening to the sounds around me, to the chain-saw buzz of mosquitoes, the swirl of water from a gator’s tail, the comforting hum of the engine. Anything to keep my mind off Santou.
Charlie tugged at his cap, as he always did when there was something he wanted to say. “Let me fill you in on a secret here, Bronx. If you’re gonna think about what you’re doing all the time, you’ll never make it through the day. It’ll blow your mind.”
I studied Hickok’s face in the darkness and wondered if I was looking at a preview of myself twenty years down the line. “Did it ever blow your mind, Charlie?”
“I’ve been run over in a boat and left for dead in the marsh a couple of times. I’ve had my personal life blown to high tarnation. Hell, I’ve even been shot at on special occasions. That’s when you learn if you’re really an agent. When you put your life on the line to do what you believe in. It happens to everyone, Bronx. Don’t ever let ’em tell you different, or they’re damn liars. It may be the first time when you think you’ve been caught in a sting, or it can sneak up on you later, like a bad case of heartburn. Either way, you make it through with your wits still about you, or ya don’t. It’s kinda like an initiation. So you might as well find out as soon as you can.”
Gliding through the swamp with its carpet of duckweed and interwoven branches of cypress closing off the sky above, there seemed no more fitting place in which to be tested. So far I’d been in agent purgatory, my every move on trial, with Charlie as judge and jury. I was ready for it to end one way or the other.
The quality of the air changed as the bayou widened to form a small lake, and then narrowed once more to a thin sliver of murky water. Working its way out to Atchafalaya Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, the area was uncharted and unknown by all except local diehards, making it easy to disappear in this watery wilderness—or to hide whatever you might want kept secret.
Gator Aide (Rachel Porter Mysteries) Page 28