The Rebel's Revenge

by Scott Mariani

  ‘Sounds like a real charmer,’ Ben said.

  ‘After that, he switched careers and got into the meth business. Along with illegal gamblin’, burglary, auto theft, money launderin’, extortion and bootleggin’. Which, in case you thought it went out with the end of prohibition back in the thirties, is still very much alive and kickin’. I’m told the Garretts produce some of the cheapest tax-free moonshine in the South. Made some folks go blind, but that don’t seem to affect their business none. Those good ol’ boys are rakin’ in the money like it’s goin’ out of style.’

  ‘You knew all this, but you never reported it?’

  Tyler shrugged. ‘There’s such a thing as lawyer–client privilege, Ben. There’s also such a thing as protectin’ your family. Nobody in their right mind would speak out against the Garretts, or any of their associates, of whom there are quite a few, believe me. The whole parish is terrified of ’em. They got ears and eyes everywhere.’ Tyler paused, then added knowingly, ‘And connections in all kindsa places. Ones we might not have been able to figure out before, but make a lot of sense in hindsight.’

  Ben knew that Tyler was thinking about the same person he was: Deputy Sheriff Mason Redbone. Sometime soon, Ben was going to have to catch up with him, too.

  ‘Then it sounds like someone needs to put a stop to the Garrett brothers,’ he said.

  Tyler shook his head. ‘We talked about this, remember? Goin’ up against these kinds of people ain’t good for your health.’

  ‘I have a fairly robust constitution,’ Ben said.

  ‘These guys are ruthless. As I think you’ve already noticed.’

  ‘Tyler, they don’t know the meaning of the word.’

  ‘It ain’t what I’d do,’ Tyler said. ‘Then again, I’m not you. And if you catch ’em, then what?

  ‘Kill ’em dead,’ Caleb said. His eyes were glowing as though this were the coolest conversation he’d ever heard.

  ‘Caleb! Enough!’ Keisha exclaimed.

  ‘I don’t think that’d be such a good idea,’ Ben said. ‘I’m already wanted for one murder I didn’t commit. Adding another three that I did commit to my account won’t help my situation much. The Garretts will have to face justice. Which they can do the easy way, by coming quietly. Or the hard way, if they choose to be awkward. That’s their call.’

  ‘And you expect them to confess to their crimes, just like that?’

  ‘Not just like that,’ Ben said. ‘But there are ways.’

  Tyler said, ‘What ways?’

  Ben replied, ‘My ways.’

  Tyler gave a little whistle. ‘Then I wouldn’t want to be in the Garrett boys’ shoes. I reckon they’re about to find themselves in a whole lot more trouble than you’re in.’

  Caleb said, ‘Awesome.’

  Ben stood. He put out his hand. Tyler looked at the hand and then grasped it in a firm, dry grip. Ben said, ‘I want to thank you for all you’ve done for me.’ He turned to Keisha. ‘Same goes for you. I owe you a very great deal and I’ll never forget your kindness.’

  Keisha rose to her feet and hugged him tightly. ‘This is you sayin’ goodbye, isn’t it?’

  Ben nodded. ‘It’s time for me to go it alone. This is what I do best.’

  Caleb got up and offered a hand to Ben, and they shook. There was a lot of power in the teenager’s grip. He’d soon be a big, strong man like his father, with all the Hebert virtues of toughness and generosity that he would one day pass on to his own children. Ben felt a pang of sadness knowing this was the last time they’d see each other.

  Caleb said, ‘Thanks again for savin’ my life, Mister Hope. There’s somethin’ I want to give you in return.’

  Chapter 30

  Professor Reuben Cantius Abellard was still quietly snoozing off the effects of his late morning liquid breakfast when his visitors went their separate ways. After swapping phone numbers and promising to keep in touch, Ben stood outside in the hot sun and watched the Heberts drive off. Caleb waved goodbye from the rear window.

  Ben waved back, and then they were gone.

  The grounds of the Abellard House were a sprawling acreage of oaks and sycamore woodland, as old and untended as the mansion they swallowed up in their midst, and thick with creepers and Spanish moss. He took a moment to get his bearings and turned and began cutting due west through the trees. West was the direction of his next port of call. Come what may, he was ready.

  The pain of his wound hardly bothered him any longer. Over his right shoulder hung his green bag; over his left Caleb’s parting gift to him: the hunting bow with which Ben had saved the boy’s life.

  Caleb’s gesture had touched Ben. He hadn’t refused the offer. A silent, powerful weapon might well come in useful again, before this was over.

  It was a while before he reached the barbed wire fence that marked the boundary of Abellard’s land and emerged from the trees at the edge of a narrow country road. The sun was hotter and the air more humid than ever. Ben took off his jacket and rolled the bow and quiver up inside it.

  He followed the road, always alert to the sound of approaching vehicles and ready to slip out of sight among the thick greenery that lined the verges. Two freight trucks and seven cars came by in the next hour, four of which were a convoy of marked Clovis Parish police cruisers and a black state police SWAT vehicle going somewhere in a hurry with sirens and lights. No doubt racing off to apprehend the dangerous fugitive that some eager-beaver citizen had reported spotting on their property, Ben thought.

  It was another hour of walking before he came upon a low-slung, tin-roofed roadside bar that from a distance he’d thought was a ruined shack. The rusted sign said JEBS TONK and Ben could hear country music blaring from inside. As much as he’d have appreciated a cold beer at that moment, he didn’t think the locals would offer much of a welcome.

  There were three pickup trucks parked outside the bar. The two on the left and right were the kind of rusted heaps that looked as though they belonged to some poor farmer or country dweller who had owned it for years simply because they couldn’t afford to replace it. The one in the middle was a shiny late-model Dodge Ram crew cab with oversized tyres, not a speck of mud on its vast area of metallic silver paintwork and all the fashionable accessories like a winch and spotlights across the roof.

  Risking a peek in through the barroom window, Ben identified its owner as an affluent-looking dude in a Stetson hat who was sitting with his two designer cowboy cronies, all rhinestones and alligator boots and lurid grins, quaffing pitchers of beer while trying to pester the barmaid, who obviously wasn’t too receptive to their noisy advances.

  A car thief with a conscience found it much easier to liberate the property of such individuals, and three minutes later Ben was blazing down the road. The Dodge had a full tank of fuel, probably enough to take him halfway to Canada if he’d been that way inclined. One of the cowboys had left his hat on the back seat, a black felt affair with a silver band, like something Tom Mix might have worn. He put it on and tilted the brim down low. Ben Hope, master of disguise.

  The other useful item on board was a combined GPS and digital radio scanner mounted to the truck’s dashboard. The rhinestone cowboys probably just used it for yakking with their buddies on Citizen’s Band, but Ben was easily able to retune it to the local police radio frequency and eavesdrop on the busy chatter of the Clovis Parish Sheriff’s Department as they raced here and there trying to find him. Meanwhile he used the GPS to plot a zigzag course to his next destination that avoided major roads. That destination being Pointe Blanche, where he had a date with his old friend Dwayne Skinner. Poor Dwayne just didn’t know it yet.

  Chitimacha was a hive of police activity, as if somehow the cops expected the fugitive to still be hanging around the scene of the crime. The irony wasn’t lost on Ben. He kept his speed down and the hat brim low over his face, just another Louisianan going about his business. There was nothing on the police radio about the stolen Dodge. The rhinestone cowboys must sti
ll be gulping beer and catcalling the barmaid back at Jeb’s Tonk.

  West of Chitimacha, the police presence thinned out and Ben relaxed a little more. Arriving in Pointe Blanche he soon found the street he was looking for, and parked the Dodge a few blocks down from Dumpy’s Rods.

  He kept the hat on as he walked down the street. The bow was a little conspicuous wrapped up in his jacket, but the couple of people he passed by didn’t seem to notice. Then he reached the chain-link fence of Dumpy’s Rods and walked in through the open gate.

  Dwayne Skinner was alone in the garage workshop, bent over the engine bay of a big, aggressive-looking muscle car. Custom flame paint, dark-tinted windows, glittering chrome sidepipes and mag wheels. A Pontiac Firebird or a Chevy Camaro from the late seventies. Ben knew a police detective in Oxford who liked these kinds of overblown, barge-sized Yank tanks. Personally, he’d rather stick with his BMW Alpina.

  He walked up behind Dwayne, who still had his head and shoulders under the raised bonnet of the car, tweaking something with a large wrench. ‘That oughtta do it,’ Dwayne muttered to himself, and was just about to step away from the car when Ben sent him sprawling headlong into the engine compartment and slammed the bonnet lid down on him.

  Dwayne let out a strangled cry of shock and pain. Ben raised the bonnet and slammed it down a couple more times for good measure, then grabbed him by the belt and dragged him out and dumped him hard on the cement floor of the workshop, wrench and all.

  It took a few moments for Dwayne to get over the initial shock, but a worse one was to come. Lying sprawled on his back he stared up at Ben and his jaw dropped open. All he could manage to gasp was, ‘Oh, shit.’

  Ben leaned against the car and folded his arms. He said, ‘Thought I’d drop in and say hello. You and I have a little unfinished business to take care of.’

  Dwayne half scrambled to his feet, slipped and fell, then struggled upright and snatched the fallen wrench off the floor with a look of hatred. He staggered towards Ben with the tool raised like a club. Ben saw the clumsy blow coming before the spark of the idea had even been kindled inside Dwayne’s tiny mind. By the time it arrived, he’d already mentally rehearsed a couple of times how he was going to block it. With his left hand he parried Dwayne’s right arm, knocking the weapon out of his fist. With his left, he hammered a sharp web strike to Dwayne’s throat.

  Dwayne went straight down on his back, choking and gurgling. Ben placed a foot across Dwayne’s neck and said, ‘Now, don’t be silly, Dwayne. You won’t solve anything by use of force. That’s my department.’

  ‘W-what do you want, man?’ Dwayne gasped, clutching his right arm as if Ben had broken it. ‘You got some nerve comin’ here. The cops are everywhere lookin’ for you.’

  Ben pointed at the muscle car. ‘Is that yours?’

  ‘It’s Dumpy’s. My boss. Jesus fuckin’ Christ, man, you busted my fuckin’ elbow.’

  So there really was a Dumpy. Ben wondered if that was the name on his birth certificate. What a curse to lay on a baby boy.

  ‘Your elbow’s fine, so stop whingeing. And where is Dumpy now?’

  ‘Florida, on vacation. Told me to fix it for’m while he’s away. I asked you what you want, man.’

  ‘I want you to take me for a drive,’ Ben said, and pointed again at the car.

  Dwayne stared at him. ‘Uh-uh. No fuckin’ way. Dumpy’d murder me if he found out I took his Firebird out, man.’

  ‘And I’ll murder you if you don’t,’ Ben said. ‘Quite a quandary, isn’t it? Now get in and let’s go.’

  Chapter 31

  Ben grabbed Dwayne by the neck, frogmarched him to the car and bundled him in behind the wheel. Then he walked around to the passenger side, opened it up, tilted the front seat forward and tossed his stuff into the rear and climbed in next to it. He drew one of Caleb’s hunting arrows from his roll and pressed its needle-point steel tip against the back of Dwayne’s neck.

  ‘Drive smoothly, Dwayne, and no sudden moves with the brakes. I’m not wearing a seat belt and it’d be so easy for this arrow to puncture all the way into your cerebellum. That’s the part of your brain that makes you walk and talk normally.’

  Dwayne fired up the Firebird’s engine. Its throaty roar filled the workshop. Very carefully indeed, sitting as stiff as a board behind the wheel with the arrow pricking the base of his neck, he engaged drive and rumbled out of the yard and into the street.

  Ben said, ‘Take a right turn.’ They passed the food market where he and Lottie had shopped for what turned out to be her last supper.

  Dwayne croaked, ‘I have no idea what you want from me, dude. Where are we goin’?’

  ‘Here’s the thing, Dwayne. I’ve been thinking back to our conversation from last time we met. You do remember our last conversation, don’t you?’

  ‘What I said, I didn’t mean nothin’ by it.’

  ‘You mean, like “don’t feed the gorilla”? If you want to be a racist moron, Dwayne, that’s your lookout. One day a gentleman of colour twice your size will stamp your scrawny little arse into the ground and leave you where he found you. I’m not here for that.’

  ‘Then what then?’ Dwayne pleaded, close to tears as he drove.

  ‘It’s about your pal Billy Bob Lafleur,’ Ben said. ‘I recall that when his name came up, it seemed that you were pretty well acquainted with him. Birds of a feather, and all that. Plus, I’m reliably informed that everybody knows everybody else around here.’

  Dwayne tried to shrug, and winced at the jab in the back of the neck that it caused him. ‘Sure, I know Billy Bob. We hung out together a couple times. Done business once or twice. He’s a real A-hole.’

  ‘I can’t disagree with you there,’ Ben said. ‘Business, as in, drug business?’

  ‘Guns, man. Sawed-off twelve-gauges. Pumps, semis, doubles, whatever we could buy in cheap. Cut’m down an’ sold’m off.’

  ‘Bank Robbers R Us. Very enterprising of you.’

  ‘That was a long time ago. I told you, he’s a real asshole. That what this is about? You wanna buy a gun?’

  ‘No, I have all kinds of ways of killing people without making the slightest bit of noise. Remember that, Dwayne. Don’t stop thinking about it for one moment.’

  ‘I’m thinkin’ about it,’ Dwayne said, and Ben believed him. His hands were trembling on the steering wheel as they headed for the edge of town.

  Ben said, ‘Seeing as you move in such exalted circles, Dwayne, I’m guessing that you and Billy Bob must have a lot of seedy little mutual friends and acquaintances in the Clovis Parish crime scene. Am I right?’

  After a long hesitation, Dwayne replied, ‘I know a few people, yeah.’

  ‘Like the Garrett brothers?’ Ben said. He was watching Dwayne’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. They were already brimming with anxiety, but the flash of fear that came into them at the mention of that name was unmistakable.

  ‘I-I dunno who you mean. The what brothers?’

  ‘Come on, Dwayne. Who do you think, Moe, Larry and Curly? I’m sure every aspiring tough guy in the state wants to be part of the Garrett boys’ gang. And you’re an aspiring tough guy, aren’t you? Especially when you’re showing off in front of your buddies. You really had me scared that day.’

  ‘I-I don’t know them, man. I mean, I know them but I don’t know them.’

  ‘Then you wouldn’t know where they hang out, or anything like that?’

  Dwayne was sweating like a pig. He took a hand off the wheel to wipe his face. ‘No idea, man. Honest to God.’

  ‘That’s a real shame,’ Ben said. ‘I was so sure you would. But never mind. Seeing as you’re no use to me after all, I’ll just get you to pull over somewhere nice and quiet once we’re out of town. Then I’ll break your ankles, knees, elbows and wrists and all your fingers and leave you in the ditch while I take your boss’s car for a nice long joyride, before I set fire to it outside the Villeneuve Sheriff’s Office. How does that sound?’

  Dwayne
was suddenly sweating even more profusely. He shrank away. ‘You’re fuckin’ crazy, man.’

  ‘Oh, I’m a total raving psychopath,’ Ben said. ‘But you must already know the things I’m capable of, if you follow the news.’

  ‘I-I know this chick who’s got a girlfriend who works for Logan Garrett,’ Dwayne stammered.

  ‘Progress at last. What is she, his administrative assistant?’

  ‘She’s a hooker, man. Name’s Layla. Logan runs a string of hookers ’cross the parish.’

  ‘You’re a real font of knowledge once you get going, Dwayne. Now, I’m thinking that this Layla could point me in the direction of wherever Logan hangs out. Where would I find her?’

  ‘I don’t know, man! Ow!’

  Ben jabbed the arrow harder. ‘Wrong answer.’

  ‘Okay, okay. They work at the Big Q. It’s a motel.’ Dwayne blurted out the name of the highway it was on, and Ben eased off the pressure with the arrowhead.

  ‘How far from here?’

  ‘Thirty miles, give or take. I ain’t never been there.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you haven’t. Then today is your lucky day, because that’s where we’re going.’

  ‘The cops are everywhere lookin’ for you. They’ll stop us for sure.’

  ‘And if that happens, I assure you that you’ll miss all the fun. Because you’ll be the first to get it right in the neck.’

  Neither of them spoke another word for the next half hour as Dwayne tooled west and then southwards down the highway. Ben stayed low down in the back seat, well concealed from outside thanks to the dark tint of the windows. He took out a cigarette one-handed while keeping Dwayne pinned with the arrow, lit it and savoured the smoke.

  It was a gamble that they wouldn’t come upon a police roadblock. But Ben had gambled before, and there was little sense worrying about it until it happened. He could leave the worrying to his feckless hostage. Dwayne was doing a lot of that.