The man who had wielded the porch chair kicked me in the ribs. Hurt like hell. Knocked the wind out of me.
I tried to catch my breath, but the man on my back tightened his grip on my neck.
I couldn’t inhale. It was like drowning without the water. I started to lose consciousness, but suddenly his fingers loosened and he rolled off me, screaming and cursing.
Luther, Washington Eby’s Catahoula hound, had sunk his teeth into the man’s butt and was drawing blood.
The other man, his face obscured by shadows, silhouetted against the moth- encircled light fixtures on the porch, reached down with a beefy hand and, grabbing the back of my shirt, pulled me up as if I weighed no more than a child.
Then all of us heard a shotgun blast and felt its effects. The pellets swarmed across the porch, shattering one of the light fixtures. The splintered glass, its sharp little shards pelting me, embedded themselves in my skin.
The man holding me let go. The other one, with the bloody butt, was on the lawn, backing away from Luther, who was baring his teeth and snapping at the intruder’s calves.
I lurched forward off the porch into the dark and started dashing toward a row of ligustrum, a nine-foot high hedge on the northern property line of my lot. My only thought now was to run as hard and as far as I could. And I can run fast.
Another shotgun blast.
I passed the ligustrum and picked up my pace, sprinting over the lawn and galloping past the sidewalk, across the street into the next yard. The grass was easier on my bare feet than the road, and I figured to continue north and outrun the two guys on my porch.
I was three houses away when I heard a voice calling out, “Neighbor! You can slow down! Ain’t no one gonna bother you now.”
Chapter 14
I walked slowly back down the street. Residents in nearby homes peeked out their curtains, but as I passed they shut them quickly, more curious than concerned.
Washington Eby, dressed in pajamas and a bathrobe, was standing on my porch holding a smoking shotgun. Luther was sitting beside him, a scrap of bloody fabric in his mouth.
“Whoever those fellows were are gone now,” Washington said as I approached. “One of ‘em will need a new pair of trousers after tonight. Luther saw to that. Been hooked by the gills, Neighbor?”
I reached up to touch my cheeks and then examined my fingers. They were covered with blood.
“Neighbor, you ain’t even been cut deep enough to ask for more than a thimbleful of sympathy. Scratches, that’s all. You’ll heal up in a day or two. Just a few red marks is all that’ll show. You got some bandages and rubbing alcohol and such? Good. Let’s go on inside and I’ll get you fixed up.”
As we entered the house I asked him how it was he had arrived with his shotgun at this time of night.
“Oh, I got an old man’s bladder,” he explained. “Can’t sleep more than an hour or so at a stretch. Was up and heard noise, so Luther and I came to investigate, thinkin’ that it’s those gangs. You know, them that come up from New Orleans. We never used to have this kind of trouble. That’s why I’ve started keepin’ my shotgun loaded. Here, look up, and let me see what they done to you.”
I sat on the edge of my bed while Washington gently removed tiny slivers of glass from my cheeks, ears, and neck. He then wiped down my cuts with rubbing alcohol. Stung like the dickens.
But, when I started to complain, Washington paused. From a throat that had inhaled too many paint fumes and encountered too many unfiltered cigarettes, Washington’s slow, contagious laugh emerged. “Look at you. Blood’s almost gone, but I’ve got to rinse you one more time, otherwise you’ll just be a red-faced, red-necked
lawyer. Don’t that beat all. Runnin’ more than half fast at that.”
“Half fast? I was doing better than a six-minute mile. And in bare feet!” “Now don’t take offense, Neighbor. Half fast’s a compliment. “ “How’s that?
“Look. I was workin’ on a turnaround job out at the Exxon refinery when it was still Standard Oil. Biggest refinery in the Northern Hemisphere at that time, just a few miles away. Sixteen-hour shifts we worked. Plant was brought down for repairs, and we had to get it up and operatin’ as soon as possible. I was a young’un, on a paint crew workin’ near a cat cracker when one of the lines blew. Made a ball of flame that was taller than the state capitol. Singed me good.”
Washington laughed again at the thought. “We all took off runnin’. I’ll never forget it. Fire behind us. Cat cracker goin’ up in flames. Valves burstin’.”
“Later that night the fires were still burnin’. Whole plant was lit up. Big clouds of smoke. Plant manager kept us all there. Put all of us who’d been near that cat cracker in a room with the white supervisor. They brought a doctor in, some nurses, and some insurance man. There we are, gettin’ looked at, gettin’ salves and ointments and what all, and this insurance fella is askin’ questions. Never shut up. He turned to Little Charlie, sittin’ next to me, and started ‘terrogatin’ him. Little Charlie, ‘bout 6 foot 4, was doin’ his best to answer, what with the supervisor there and all. That insurance man talked to us real slow and loud, like we was children who didn’t speak no English. Like we couldn’t possibly understand him unless he spoke down to us. ‘What were you workin’ on when it happened? How near the catalytic converter were you? What tools were you holdin’? Were you wearin’ work gloves? Were you wearin’ steel-toed shoes? Do you understand what I’m askin’?’ Never looked up. Just asked questions and wrote down notes in the pad as Little Charlie answered.”
“‘What did you do when you heard the explosion?’ Still writin’ in his pad. Little Charlie just stared at him like that was the stupidest question he had ever heard, and it damned near was. But Little Charlie kept being polite; ‘Started runnin.’ he said. And that insurance man asked ‘How fast did you run?’ Little Charlie, now, he had had enough of this white man, so he answered ‘Half fast.’”
“That insurance fellow finally stopped writin’ on his pad. Said he don’t understand what Little Charlie meant. Said he can’t figure out why Little Charlie was only goin’ half fast if the cat cracker was blowing up behind him. ‘What’s half fast?’”
“I remember Little Charlie lookin’ him right in the eye. ‘Well,’ Little Charlie says, ‘I was passin’ some, and some was passin’ me.’”
“And that insurance fellow writes that in the pad!”
Washington laughed again. “Mr. Lawyer, you were goin’ more than half fast.”
He got up to leave. “That’s enough for tonight. You get some rest and I’ll check in on you in the mornin’.”
I tried to thank him, but he brushed it off.
“Weren’t nothin’. Want me to call the police?”
I told him not to bother. Sure, my home had been violated. And sure, I wanted to see whoever did it locked up. But, after all, if the police came, what could I tell them? Once they started to ask questions, one thing might lead to another. They might find out that Taylor had been here earlier. They might talk to her. And the way Taylor prattles on, what would she say about the $1.6 million missing from the Camellia Industries accounts?
Couldn’t have been a coincidence. While on the bayou this afternoon, I had spotted a man with a rifle at Camellia Industries. Then two men show up here this evening.
No way of knowing if they would come back, but it probably wouldn’t be tonight, not with Luther having gotten a taste of one of them and Eby with his shotgun. I figured that I, along with the more than four million dollars hidden in my hallway crawl space, would probably be safe, at least until tomorrow.
Chapter 15
THURSDAY
I was exhausted. From the tension. From the shock of learning about G.G.’s death. From the astonishment of finding all that cash. From the day in the sun on the bayou in St. Bonaventure Parish. From the drive back in the rain. From Taylor’s evening visit and from the attack at my house.
I had collapsed on my bed, motionless for hours, probab
ly snoring loudly, when something dragged me out of the depths of a dead sleep. Something insistent. Something constant.
The phone.
I looked at my clock. Not yet four in the morning.
The phone continued to ring.
I didn’t recognize the number, but with G.G. dead, I needed clients again. I had gotten a couple of divorce cases that way in the eight months since I had hung out my shingle. Small, one shot deals. Late night or early morning calls from someone distraught, desperate for a lawyer and willing to pay something.
I reluctantly picked up the receiver.
It was someone desperate all right. It was Taylor
“Schex, I really need your help.” Her voice quivered. It sounded almost sincere.
I had sworn off her years ago. I should have rejected her right then and there, just as she had once rejected me.
But, instead of hanging up, I couldn’t resist saying, out of spite, “It’s too late for that.”
“Really, Schex, no shit. I’m serious. I’m at the . . .” Her voice cracked. There was a moment of silence, and then she resumed, in a strong, slow tone. “At the St. Bonaventure courthouse. They’ve got me in the jail here on the third floor and won’t let me go.”
So that was it. They probably picked her up on a DWI. Drunk, no doubt. “Of course they won’t let you go. Not at this hour.”
“Don’t fuck with me Schex. I’ve got this one call, and I’ve called you. You’ve got to help.”
This was vintage Taylor. One minute pleading and almost tearful, the next harsh and demanding. Dammit, I shouldn’t have picked up the phone at all, but I had listened too long already. If she was in the courthouse jail, the call was being monitored. She probably told them that I was her lawyer. Now I had to act the part, until I figured out what was going on. After all, the last thing I needed her to do was to start yammering about the money.
“OK, Taylor, just shut up for a minute. Don’t say anything more. Just answer yes or no. Have you been there long?”
“I’ve been here for fucking hour upon hour. Some shitty little sheriff asked me to come with him to answer some questions, and there I went, nice as you please, trying to cooperate, trying to help them find out what happened to G.G., and I followed him all the way out into the middle of goddamn nowhere. Won’t even let me go to my car to get my cigarettes.”
“Taylor, listen to me. Just answer my questions. Have they read you your rights?”
“They just did that. That’s why I’m calling you. Said I had the right to an attorney. Well, you’re sure as hell an attorney.”
“Taylor, just yes or no. Have they booked you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Yes or no! Have they fingerprinted you?”
“Yes.”
“Is this the first call you’ve made?”
“Yes.”
“Have you said anything to them?”
“You know me better than that. All I’ve told them is the truth. Here I am, being nice little Miss-Let-Me-Tell-You-About-How-Screwed-Up-G.G.-Fucking-Guidry-Can- Be and they accuse me of killing the son of a bitch! Not that he didn’t deserve it, of course.”
“Taylor! Open your ears and close your mouth!”
What had she gotten herself into? I couldn’t believe what I was about to do. She was sucking me back in.
I was plunging headlong into disaster and couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
Chapter 16
“Yes or no,” I continued, “is the only thing I want to hear you say. I’ll be there in a half hour, forty minutes max. Do you understand? Say nothing else until I get there. All right?”
“All ri . . . Yes.”
I hung up the phone and put on a clean shirt and slacks. Fingerprinting meant arrest. Finding a judge to set bail wasn’t going to happen for hours.
I grabbed two books off the shelf, and drove as fast as I could to the St. Bonaventure courthouse.
Back down the expressway.
Back through the woods and fields.
Back across the St. Bonaventure bridge and along the road parallel to the cane breaks.
The jail was upstairs in the old wooden building, on the floor above the courtroom. Sitting at the desk outside the interrogation room was Sheriff Isaiah Brown.
To find the Sheriff here at this hour was not good. He loved headlines. He wouldn’t be here in person unless he was planning to do something to hit the morning news shows.
He informed me, with no small degree of satisfaction, that Taylor was under arrest for the murder of G.G. Guidry and that he didn’t care when the judge came in. Taylor could sit there all day as far as he was concerned, because the news crews were on their way, and this case was going to propel him right into the Louisiana legislature.
That’s when I first found out that G.G. hadn’t drowned in the retaining pond, as the newspaper story had implied. That’s when I found out that G.G. had been shot. Three times.
If it was a murder inquiry he was conducting, I pointed out to the Sheriff, with just the right amount of derision in my voice, then whether he liked it or not, the United States Constitution still applied, even here in “his jail” in St. Bonaventure. I had a right to consult with Taylor. Alone. Unsupervised. Without prying eyes or ears.
The Sheriff fumed, but the last thing he wanted was a faulty arrest and interrogation, so he finally agreed to let us meet in a back room, although he pulled his chair up outside the door and had one of his deputies stand next to him, hand ostentatiously on his holster.
Once the door closed, I told Taylor to say nothing. I had brought two old novels with broken spines, their pages brittle and yellowed. I handed her one and took the other.
It was hours later, almost 10:00 a.m., before the Sheriff knocked on the door and indicated that the judge had agreed to speak with me on the phone.
Chapter 17
We were back at my house, and I could scarcely believe how screwed up things had become. “You told me you wanted G.G. dead, but you went around telling others that too? You even told the teller at the bank when you found out the accounts had been cleaned out?”
“Schex, you know that was just an excess of emotion.”
“It was an excess of excess, Taylor. They’ve got your statements to the teller. They’ve got you ranting at the Cotillion about G.G. taking ‘your money’ and fooling around with Millie Sue. You must have made quite a ruckus in that parking lot. Apparently, a lot of people from the ball overheard, people who seem to have no love lost for you. And they’ve got G.G.’s body. I’d say you’re in an excess of trouble.” “Schex . . . .”
“Taylor, it was all I could do to get you released. Judge Rochbauve is not known for being lenient. ‘Course it didn’t hurt that Francine’s youngest sister and I had gone to law school together, but it was still tough to get her to set the bond at something reasonable. Now it turns out G.G. was murdered. Body partially eaten away by the chemicals in the holding pond, but not so much as to disguise the three bullet wounds the coroner found. The media will be giving this new angle plenty of play. Taylor, considering all that, you’re damn lucky I was able to get you out on any bond, much less one you could afford to post. You owe me. You owe me big.”
“You’re right. I’m deeply in your debt.”
She sounded as if she meant it. She sounded as if she were grateful. “You’ll defend me, though, won’t you?”
I knew it. Whatever I did, it was never enough. She always wanted something
more.
“Absolutely not.”
She looked up at me with pleading eyes, glistening with earnest-appearing tears. “Don’t start that with me, Taylor. It won’t work.”
“But you tried lots of cases with and for Catch. Big defense wins. You could do this for me, if you really wanted to.”
Consistency was never one of Taylor’s strong points. She had belittled me earlier, claiming that she had sent Guidry to me because I was a cheap lawyer with no scruples who would do whatever he asked.
Which, in fact, was pretty close to the truth. But now she wanted me to be her protector in court, and to do that, she brings up Catch? Taylor and Catch had conspired to ruin my life. It had been a successful conspiracy.
“You made your choice when you went with him. I won’t have his ghost hanging over me in the courtroom.”
“Schex . . .” Her voice quivered again. She had quivering down pat when she needed it. “You’ve got to help.”
I had a right to be cold and brutally honest with her after all these years. More honest with her than she had ever been with me. “The charge is murder. Second degree right now, otherwise you wouldn’t be out on bail. But, I expect they may change that to first degree. Who knows what they’ll come up with in the next few days or weeks? Who knows what you’ve said about G.G. to others?” She was crying now, heaving softly.
I felt no pity. I wanted to hurt her. For years I had conjured unworkable schemes to make her suffer, to make her pay. “Prosecutors dream of defendants like you. Scorned woman. Missing money. Hazardous fumes. Sex. Violence. A St. Bonaventure jury will lap it up.”
“But I didn’t . . .” she cried.
“Don’t tell me anything. I’m not your husband anymore. I’m not your lawyer.
And I’m not going to be your lawyer.”
She wept. She grabbed a dishtowel and put it to her face. Her body jerked convulsively as the crying grew louder. She put part of the dishtowel in her mouth and bit down on it to try to stifle her sobs.
I had seen it all before. I didn’t do a thing to comfort her. I just sat and sipped my coffee.
She saw I wasn’t buying her act, so she simply stopped. The tears ceased immediately.
Taylor wiped her nose with the dishtowel. She folded it into a neat rectangle and placed it on the counter. She pulled out her pocket mirror and checked to make sure her mascara hadn’t run. Satisfied, she looked up at me. “If I’ve treated you badly over the years,” she said quietly, “I apologize.”
Cashed Out Page 4