The Shoal of Time

by J. M. Redmann

  I drove away but took a swing around the block, dallying just long enough to see the flashing lights in the distance and to make sure Dwayne wasn’t smart enough to make a run for it.

  To ice the cake, I made a stop in the upper French Quarter.

  Madame Celeste wasn’t in, but Roland took the message. “Pass on to her contacts they want to question a lowlife just arrested at a Tulane Avenue hotel. His cousins are the Guidry brothers.” I also asked if they had any surveillance footage of the john who had threatened her. Roland said he’d see what he could do.

  I went back to my office and my very well-deserved turkey sandwich.

  This would be over soon. If the Feds were lucky they’d break the entire thing open and get the head honcho. Worst case was the Guidry brothers, along with their stupid cousin, would go to jail for a long time.

  Ashley would return to New York, but we could work something out. I’d gone to college there and knew the city. New Orleans had always been home to me, but maybe there were too many ghosts here, too many bad memories, and it was time to try somewhere different.

  It was frustrating to sit in my office distractedly looking at my computer screen when I knew things had to be happening. By now Dwayne was getting the third degree of third degrees, maybe even raids to the place on the North Shore. But I was a civilian, outside the loop. I could only hope this evening I could get an update from Ashley.

  My hopes were dashed when she called around four.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t talk long. Things have changed and I’m going to be working tonight.”

  “Call me when you can. Even if it’s late.”

  “It’ll be real late. We can talk tomorrow. I’ll call you then,” was her good-bye.

  This is your fault, I thought as I packed up to leave the office. The case was breaking open, thanks to my convincing Dwayne Guidry he needed to tell the police everything. Ashley might be working very late. Maybe they would even capture the mole. I was hoping it wasn’t Emily, only that she had been fooled by someone she trusted.

  When I got home, I switched on the local news, but the stories were about a traffic accident that blocked the interstate or the upcoming Super Bowl.

  Maybe they’ll have something on the ten o’clock news, I thought as I turned the TV off.

  Or maybe I wouldn’t find out anything until tomorrow.

  Or maybe the cops had forgotten something as important as a boat and they’d escaped again.

  I wandered the house, too distracted to want dinner.

  Madame Celeste might know something. I could at least go there and do some of what she was paying me to do and patrol the place, even if she wasn’t available.

  A drizzling rain had started, so I decided to drive the ten blocks rather than walk. By the time I got there and was parked, the rain had stopped, but the damp made the chilly night even colder. I had on a jean jacket, not enough for the cold. I was glad my walk was only a few blocks and not the length of the French Quarter.

  A cold, wet Monday night had emptied the streets. I was the only one foolish enough to be out here at this time. I glanced at my watch. It was almost nine. Even the after-work happy-hour drunks were long home by now.

  I turned onto the block for Madame Celeste’s. It was darker than I remembered.

  First I thought it was the night and the rain, but then I noticed missing lights. I felt a crunch of glass under my feet and looked up to see a broken streetlight.

  Then I saw a small pool of light coming from a door that had always been closed before.

  I hurried my steps.

  A shadow sidled from between Madame Celeste’s place and the one next to it.

  First just a shape, but as I got closer I could see it was a man, tall, bundled in black against the cold. He was holding something.

  He was splashing liquid around the building.

  In the faint light of the door I could now see Roland, inside, on the floor, one hand stretched just over the threshold. His head was bleeding. I thought he was dead until the hand moved, trying to close the protective door.

  The man walked past him as if he wasn’t there.

  The smell of gasoline hit my nose.

  He’s going to torch the place.

  I couldn’t shoot him. That might be enough of a spark to set the fire.

  All the lights were on in the house. The women were in there. They’d burn alive.

  He was being careful to not get any of the gas on himself.

  The hat pulled low over the face made it hard for me to see him, but there was a dark spot on one of his hands, like a tattoo.

  He put down the can and stepped back.

  I charged him.

  He heard my footsteps and turned to me. He had a match in his hand.

  I could see his face. He wasn’t the one who’d attacked Ashley, but they were related. Probably brothers. He looked like the man I’d seen at the warehouse.

  I slammed into him, shoulder at his chest. He stumbled backward but remained standing. He swung at me, hitting my shoulder.

  We grappled, my shoulder against his torso. I shoved my foot behind his, trying to unbalance him. He stumbled again but still didn’t fall. He knew what I was trying to do.

  He punched me in the throat, making me gag.

  Ignore the pain, I told myself. If he pushed me down in the gas, all he needed to do was toss the match.

  I punched him as hard as I could between his legs. Then again.

  He groaned.

  A risk, I bent farther down to reach my hand to the back of his knee and pull hard.

  With my other hand I punched his balls again.

  He stumbled, teetered.

  I pushed with my shoulder in his stomach, yanking his calf to me.

  Finally pulling him down.

  He held on, taking me with him.

  I struggled to stay on top, trying to let him soak up as much of the gas as I could. If he was covered in it, he wouldn’t dare light the match.

  He swung at my face.

  I turned aside just enough that his blow clipped my chin.

  I slammed my palm into his nose.

  Did it again.

  He was big and strong. Eventually he would win.

  I had to end the fight before that.

  “Fire!” I shouted. “Call the police! Fire!”

  Someone had to hear me even behind all those closed doors.

  Fire is a fear in the French Quarter. The old buildings, many of them wood, are close together, wall touching wall. A blaze could quickly spread.

  He struggled, rocking violently to throw me off.

  I used a knee to pin his arm, rubbing his sleeve in a pool of the gas.

  He used the other arm, swung; hit me in the stomach, rolling me off him.

  Now he was on top of me.

  I deliberately raked my hand through the gas, then flung the droplets at his face.

  Instinctively he closed his eyes and reared away from me.

  It was a small opening, but I took it.

  Punched him as hard as I could in the solar plexus. Left hand, then right hand.

  He groaned in pain.

  I shoved him off me, back onto the gasoline-covered sidewalk.

  He hadn’t been trained as a fighter, had relied instead on being big, strong, and menacing with his tattoos.

  I knew the soft, vulnerable places to hit. The groin, the solar plexus, right at the base of the throat, the nose.

  I pummeled him, hitting one spot after another, throat, nose, lifting up and letting my weight fall with my knee into his balls.

  I paused once or twice between blows to smear gas on his chest, his throat and face.

  The second time I slammed my knee into his groin, I realized he wasn’t fighting back, feebly moving his hands to protect himself.

  I stopped punching, but stayed on top of him.

  Voices, shouting. The sound of our fight had drawn a crowd. The street exploded into a cacophony of sirens, both police and fire. />
  I got off him, suddenly aware of how much my body ached. He had landed blows and they took their toll.

  “There’s gas everywhere,” I shouted to the first uniform I saw. I pointed to the man in the street. “He was trying to burn the place down. He’s covered in gas.”

  “So are you,” a fireman said as he pulled me to the side.

  I was exhausted, the fight and the fear draining me. I let the cops and the firefighters take over.

  I kept my statement simple. I saw him trying to burn down the building and stopped him.

  Roland was packed into an ambulance.

  The firefighters were putting down something that looked a lot like cat litter on the gasoline.

  Madame Celeste—now Desiree Montaigne, owner of the building—joined us. She was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, a business owner after hours. I didn’t see any of her staff or their clients. Probably a back door somewhere.

  She added to my story, saying I was a private detective—I showed my license—and she had hired me for extra security.

  “You need to get out of those clothes,” she said to me. She held up a robe and led me to a dark end of the street.

  I quickly stripped of all but my bra and panties. Even my shoes and socks. They were ruined anyway. One of the firemen took my gun and holster, to make sure there was no gas there. My wallet, license, and cell phone were in a deep enough pocket to have only a slight odor.

  Desiree took charge of those for me.

  Once we were finally able to leave—I got my gun back, but the fireman suggested a new holster—she led me back to the smaller house she owned and directly to the bathroom.

  “Shower,” she instructed. “A very long shower.”

  I let the water get as hot as I could stand. Standing in the cold drizzle barefoot had chilled me, especially as exhausted as I was, no reserves to keep warm.

  I washed my hair three times and conditioned it twice. Then I scrubbed and rescrubbed every part of my body, from between my toes to the backs of my ears.

  I finally had to back off on the hot water but still stood under the stream for several minutes, letting it flow over me. Then I turned the water off, too exhausted to keep standing.

  When I opened the shower curtain, Desiree was there with a towel.

  I took it from her and wrapped myself in it, at first too enervated to even dry myself.

  “Let me check you,” she murmured. She leaned in and smelled my hair, then my neck and arms to the fingers. “No hint of gasoline,” she assured me.

  I nodded and started tiredly drying myself.

  “You’re bruised,” she said, gently touching the one on my back, then my chin.

  “Yeah, but you should see the other guy,” I said as I finished drying. With nothing else to wear, I draped the towel around me.

  “I did see him. A man who could do that—you should have hit him harder.”

  I looked down at my bruised and scraped knuckles.

  She followed my gaze. She took my hands and gently kissed them. “But he didn’t light the match, and justice will deal with him.” She let go of my hands. “Let me find you a robe. You can leave the towel hanging here.”

  I left the towel and followed her, too tired to think I was naked until we were standing in her bedroom. Even then I was too tired to think much about it.

  “Here,” she said, handing me a heavy robe. “Socks?” she asked, pulling a pair from a drawer. “You seem to be cold.” She looked at my breasts, the nipples erect.

  I nodded acknowledgment and put on the robe and the socks.

  She smiled at me sitting on her bed, reached for my hand, and said, “Let’s go to the kitchen and talk.”

  “Any chance I can get a snack?” I asked. Hours ago I hadn’t been hungry and had skipped dinner. Now I was ravenous.

  “Anything you like.”

  This was where she lived, the furnishings expensive but not in the showy way of those at the other place. There were antiques, mixed with well-made wooden pieces, the drapes and walls muted, soft colors. Many of these were the colors and styles I might have picked.

  Her kitchen was homey, clearly used with copper-bottomed pots hanging on a rack near the stove, pot holders with faded stains on them from long-ago spills.

  “Soup and sandwich?” she asked as I sat at a comfortable stool at her kitchen island.

  “Anything short of shoe leather sounds divine.”

  She threw together toasted cheese sandwiches and heated up a bowl of ginger-butternut squash soup she’d made the day before.

  I devoured half a sandwich in two bites. That took the edge off and I could eat in a more civilized manner after that.

  As I was eating, she said, “I need to thank you for saving my life. And possibly the lives of everyone who works here. Roland was hit in the head and has a concussion, but he’ll be okay.”

  I swallowed and said, “Everyone else got out the back way?”

  “Yes. No one saw anything of importance, so there was no point in getting them involved.”

  “They could have gotten away from the fire, then?”

  “Possibly,” she said slowly. “It involved unlocking a back gate, climbing over another wall, and escaping through someone’s back garden.”

  We both nodded. A gas-fueled fire can rapidly spread. Some probably wouldn’t have made it. The horror of being burned alive was haunting, so narrowly missed.

  “It should be over soon,” I said. “Or at least a good chunk of the body bitten off the snake. They hired some locals, the Guidry brothers, to smuggle through the swamp. They got greedy and stupid. One of them is in jail right now, smarting from having a woman beat him up.” I told her about Dwayne and what he was probably spilling to the cops. “In fact, I was coming over here to see if your contacts knew anything. The waiting to hear was driving me crazy.”

  “I was waiting to hear from…my contact. I received another threat.”

  “You did? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I told my contact. I thought of telling you, almost called, but decided you were one person and I worried about the danger.”

  “What kind of threat?”

  “Pretty much the same. A stake in a delicate place if I passed on any more messages to the cops.”

  “How could they know it was you?”

  “I don’t know. I talked to only one person. Someone I trusted to be discreet with what he hears from me.”

  I’d told Emily.

  “What’s wrong?” she said.

  “Damn, I may be the problem.” I told her about Emily and her questioning. I didn’t tell her I had lied, using my work for her as a cover to protect Ashley.

  She put her hand on mine. “You didn’t know. Couldn’t know. And as you said, it’s almost over. One of the brothers is in custody, the other will be soon. Even if he isn’t, he’s been too weakened to attack.”

  “True,” I said, hoping it was indeed so. “He might do better in custody than answering to the big boss in New York.”

  “Think about it. They’ve lost access to their smuggling route. Now one of the brothers is in jail and he’ll stay there a long time. A snitching cousin is also in custody. If the other brother isn’t caught it will only be because he got a plane ticket to someplace with lax extradition treaties.”

  “The one brother in jail might rethink his loyalties. He’s in lock-him-up-and-throw-away-the-key territory unless he helps get the ones they really want. Certainly the mole will be exposed.”

  “Even if they get away, it’s not likely they’ll be back here.” She smiled at me. “Now finish eating.”

  I had stopped eating when I remembered telling Emily. I started again. I was hungry. My watch had been thrown out with my gas-soaked clothes, so I had no idea of the time.

  Once I had finished, she asked, “Anything else?”

  “This will sound stupid, but do you have any hot chocolate?”

  “Not stupid at all.”

  She had the old-fashio
ned kind you make with real milk. She made us both a cup. Without asking, she poured a shot of cognac as well.

  “I had a fire going in the fireplace,” she said, leading us into her living room. “Perfect place to drink hot chocolate.”

  We sat on a comfortable leather sofa in front of the dying embers.

  “Will your contact tell you what’s happening?” I asked.

  “If I ask. If he can.”

  “I talked to an ICE agent as well. I might be able to get information from her.”

  “Did you tell her about the message?”

  “Well, yes. But she knew about it before I passed it on to you. Besides…I trust her.” I had told Ashley as well as Emily. But I did trust Ashley. I also trusted Emily in an odd sort of way. I just couldn’t trust the people she might have told.

  I was too tired and it was too complicated. It was easier to let my head roll back against the couch and close my eyes. I felt her arm go around my shoulder. It was so comfortable to rest my cheek there.

  I must have dozed because I felt Desiree take the half-drunken cup of hot chocolate from my hand.

  “You need to go to bed.”

  “I can crash here on the couch.”

  “You’re too tall for it. Come to bed.”

  I didn’t argue, I just wanted to keep sleeping.

  Until I realized that she had only one bedroom and I was naked under the robe.

  “I’m very tired,” I hedged.

  “I know, all we’re doing is sleeping.” She kissed my cheek, then undid the sash on my robe.

  “And…I’m involved with someone,” I stumbled out.

  She smiled a sad smile as if understanding the real reasons for my rejection. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “Just sleep.”

  “It’s true,” I answered. “If I weren’t…it would be different.”

  I bent in and softly kissed her on the lips. I had made no promises to Ashley, but still they seemed implied. Even if I hadn’t made them to her, I’d made them to myself. I wanted to find a path that wasn’t as twisted and turning as what I’d been on. But underneath my exhaustion was a giddy joy at being alive, the noxious smell of gasoline and what might have happened still so close. I wanted to be held and hold, to do what I’d almost lost to the flicking of a match.