Race with Death

by Gilbert, Morris

  Dani listened closely as the woman spoke of Cory’s childhood, and understood that no matter how hard the woman was now, Annie had had a real love for this, her only child. She spoke against the background of scraping fiddles and nasal voices, and the air was thick with the odor of beer and stale cigarette smoke.

  “I loved her. But times was hard, and I couldn’t make it no way—except this.” Annie jerked her head around, indicating the darkened room. “She had to grow up in a joint—but I didn’t have no other way to go—except something worse.”

  “I’m sure you did the best you could, Mrs. Louvier,” Dani said quietly. “Life’s been easy for me, but I can understand a little of what it must be like to have no help.”

  Dani’s words seemed to break through the hardness of the woman, and her lips grew softer. “She was such a pretty little thing, Cory was, and a sweeter child never drew breath!” A thought had its way with her, and she shook her head grimly, “If she’d been plain, it would have been better. Ain’t no good for a woman in a place like this to be too good-looking!”

  “I guess it’s dangerous,” Dani said. Then she asked cautiously, “Did you like Eddie Prejean? At first, I mean.”

  “Yeah, I did,” Annie admitted. “He was different from most of the guys around here. Polite, you know? And educated. He was jealous, like all men, of course. They had some real fights when she went out with other men.”

  “But she liked Eddie, didn’t she?”

  “Oh, sure, she was crazy about him at first.” Annie looked down at the table silently, then raised her head. “I talked her out of marrying him.” Sadness washed across her face, and Dani read the grief. “I told her she could do better. That was when she was going with the governor.”

  “Annie—” Dani asked cautiously, “what does that mean—she was ‘going with the governor’? He’s a married man and a public figure.”

  “Layne Russell’s a married man and a woman chaser,” Annie snorted. “Always has been and always will be! Soon as I saw that big ruby ring he gave her, I knew what was up!”

  “Did you think he’d divorce his wife and marry Cory?”

  Annie shook her head. “I don’t know, Miss Ross. I guess not. I thought she could handle him. And I still say she’d have done it,” she said defiantly. “Cory never give herself away, I know that much! She was driving Russell crazy—which no woman ever done before!”

  Dani felt that she was close to something, but knew that she must be very cautious. “Annie, before all this happened, would you have said that Eddie was a man who would commit murder?”

  Annie shook her head at once. “No, I wouldn’t. He fooled me bad. But you never know what a guy will do when he gets jealous. And they proved he done it—killed my little girl!” Anger swept over the woman, and she said, “I should have let Dax have him!”

  “Dax—the man over there?” Dani stared at the bouncer who was standing behind the bar listening to the dark-haired waitress. A scowl was on his handsome face, and he looked across the room at her—or so Dani thought. His face seemed to be flushed, and he glared at her with such anger, she thought he was still mad that she’d turned him down.

  “Yes, he was crazy about Cory—always was. He’s my nephew, my sister Rae’s boy.”

  “Did Cory have feelings for him?”

  “No, not a bit. Oh, she liked him; they were close as peas in a pod when they were young. But when they grew up and Dax wanted to go with her, she just laughed at him. Said she’d never marry a cousin.”

  Dani stared at the man’s broad shoulders. “He wanted to fight Eddie?”

  “Wanted to kill him, honey!” Annie shook her head sadly. “Dax is good-looking and all—but he’s not bright. Never got beyond the third grade. If I didn’t keep him up, he’d be in jail or dead in a month. Got a strong back, but no mind at all. I caught him with a gun, and made him tell me what he was going to do with it—which was to shoot Eddie Prejean.”

  “That’s very sad, Annie.”

  “Yeah, it is. Most things are.” Annie Louvier leaned back against the scarred wood of the booth and closed her eyes. The jarring cacophony of the music beat against Dani’s ears.

  I could have been like this woman, she thought suddenly. If I’d been born into her world, with no loving parents, no security—I could be in a beer joint waiting for the next cheap thrill with some man.

  The thought sobered her, and it saddened her as well. A great pity for Annie Louvier came to her, and she sat there longing to express the love that was in her, but she could find no way to put it into words.

  “You really think Eddie didn’t do it?”

  Dani was startled by Annie’s question but had her answer ready. “I’m not completely certain, Annie, but I’ve got a feeling that he’s gotten himself caught in this thing because of some things he’s doing that people high up don’t like.”

  Annie opened her eyes instantly. “Like maybe Layne Russell?”

  “Well—I think he’s involved in it somehow.”

  “He’s got it in him. He came from this part of the state. My daddy knew him. Worked for him some. He always said that there wasn’t nothing too rotten for Layne Russell to pull.”

  “I have no proof,” Dani said quickly. “And there isn’t much time.”

  Annie sat wrapped in silence, the failures of a lifetime marked on her face. She looked across the table at Dani, then said, “I never said this to anybody—but I’ve never been sure Eddie killed my girl. He had a hot temper, but he’s not a killer. And if he goes to the chair, that means the real killer will be somewhere laughing at how he got by with it.” Taking a deep breath, she held it, then expelled it. She took a Virginia Slim from a pack in her pocket, lit it with a kitchen match, and let the smoke curl around her face. “What do you want to know?” she asked dully.

  “I don’t know, Annie,” Dani admitted. “Somewhere in all this, there’s a key. It might be in something Cory said to you that she never said to anyone else. Would it hurt too much to go over the last day or so of her life? To tell me what you two talked about?”

  “No,” Annie said slowly. “I don’t mind doing that. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Maybe it’ll help to say it out loud.”

  Dani drank her Coke as Annie Louvier went over the last days of her daughter’s life. She wished that she had a tape recorder, but it was too late for that. She strained to hear, not wanting to miss a word, and hoped that a word from the grave might fall, some word that would turn the key on Angola Prison and set Eddie Prejean free.

  Finally, Annie crushed out her cigarette with a final gesture. “That’s all, I guess.” She got to her feet, saying, “I got to go to work.” But she gave Dani a strange look and asked, “Any of this help you?”

  “I’ll have to go someplace where it’s quiet and think about it, Annie. But it was good of you to tell me.”

  “If it helps Eddie, I wish you’d come and tell me about it.” Her features softened, and she added, “I wish Cory had married him. Maybe things would have worked out.”

  And then she turned and left, crossing the crowded floor and disappearing through a narrow door to the right of the bar.

  Dani had eaten none of the food, and discovered that the shrimp and boudin were cold, covered with a film of grease. She got up, aware of how tired she was and dreading the drive back to New Orleans. As she made her way to the door and several of the men made her a final offer, she was aware that the waitress was watching her.

  Stepping outside into the cold March air was like entering an alien world. The sounds of the rasping fiddles and nasal singing were instantly muted as she closed the door. She savored the relative silence as she walked across the uneven concrete toward her car, wondering how anyone could stand having their ears assaulted by such a din for eight hours.

  There was no moon, and the dim yellow lights over the sign did nothing to illuminate the murky darkness of the outer edge of the parking lot. There was almost no traffic on the highway, though she heard
the sound of the heavy tires of eighteen-wheelers humming dully in the distance.

  She’d parked on the outer edge and saw the shadow of her Cougar only as a vague outline past two pickup trucks. She fumbled in her purse for the keys and was so preoccupied that she had no warning as a shadow came from between the pickups.

  When a pair of strong hands closed around her, Dani knew she had made a bad mistake. Opening her mouth to scream, she managed only a brief cry before one hard hand clamped over her mouth.

  “Keep your mouth shut and you won’t get hurt!”

  Dani began to kick backward, landing one blow on her attacker’s shin. He grunted, then without warning, released his grip with one hand. Dani opened her mouth to scream, but she uttered only an abrupt grunt. A hard fist struck her in the temple, and she knew only a blinding pain—and then she slipped away, feeling her knees collapsing before she lost all sense of reality.

  Later, she began to wake, struggling to come out of the blackness that wrapped her like a shroud. Her head was splitting with the worst headache she’d ever known, and a sudden jerking motion sent a blinding pain streaking through her head. The pain was so intense, she thought she’d throw up—and then she realized that her mouth was bound tight with some sort of cloth.

  She lay there for a moment, fighting off the nausea, and the pieces began coming together. Her hands were tied behind her back, and she was lying across a circular form that she realized at once was the tunnel of a car. The bumping of the car struck her blow after blow, so she knew that she was being taken down a rough, unpaved road.

  Desperately she tried to move and succeeded in rolling over until she was on her side, but that was no better, for the tunnel beat her side so brutally that she was forced again to lie on her stomach. Opening her eyes, she twisted her head and saw only a faint glow from the instrument panel. She was in the back of the car being taken someplace.

  The cords cut into her wrists, and her hands had lost all feeling. Once before in her life she had been totally filled with mindless terror—when she had been confined in a silo by a madman. The memory of that fear had crawled over her mind like an alien beast and now flooded her once again.

  The car rocked and the springs groaned as the vehicle bounced over the rough terrain. How long she lay there fighting against the waves of terror that threatened to engulf her, Dani never knew. It could have been hours, counting the time she was unconscious. She longed for the trip to be over, yet the thought of what might happen at the end of her journey was a specter that loomed darkly.

  Finally she felt the engine slow down, and the bumping against her stomach lessened. Then the car stopped altogether. She heard the door open, then slam. The door by her head opened, and she felt herself hauled out of the car by rough hands.

  “Come on, now—don’t play possum on me!”

  Dani recognized the voice, for she had heard it only a short time before.

  Dax Fontenot!

  She had no time to think, except to remember the look of anger he’d given her at Annie’s Place. He released his hold, and she almost fell to the ground. Her ankles were tied, she discovered, and her feet had no more sensation than her hands.

  “You won’t run away, will you?” Fontenot jibed. A light went on, and the strong beam of a flashlight caught Dani in the eyes, blinding her. A push sent her to the ground, and Fontenot turned and walked away. Dani blinked in the darkness, finally able to see that he was doing something a few feet away. She heard the sound of his feet on wood, then the light disappeared. The smell of a bayou was strong in her nostrils, and she could see the faint reflection of stars on water.

  The silence was broken by the rattle of an outboard being turned over by a rope. Twice it came, and on the third pull, the engine roared into life, breaking the stillness of the night.

  Dani lay there, and without warning found herself picked up and thrown over the broad shoulders of her captor. She bounced along, and then was deposited in the bottom of a boat. Several inches of stale water smelling of dead fish soaked into her back, and she struggled to sit upright.

  Fontenot ignored her, and when he’d backed the boat out into the water and wheeled it around, he sent it shooting ahead with such force that Dani fell over backward. Fontenot laughed, calling out over the roar of the engine, “Make yourself comfortable, baby. We’ll have us a little romantic boat ride.”

  Dani struggled to a sitting position, and tried to make some sort of order out of the journey—but it was impossible. She was being taken into the depths of a bayou, and each tree that loomed overhead looked like every other tree. As for direction, that was impossible to tell as well, for Fontenot sent the flat-bottomed boat around groves of huge cypress trees, cutting back and forth so rapidly that Dani gave up.

  The engine roared steadily, and for at least thirty minutes, Fontenot steered the small craft deeper into the swamp. Finally, the roar of the engine lessened, and then shut off. The boat glided silently along, and by the dim light of the stars, Dani was able to see a slight bit of ground swelling out of the black water. She made out an indistinct shape on it, and as the boat ground to a stop, she saw that it was a very small cabin.

  Fontenot leapt out, pulled the bow of the boat up onto the land, and then came and jerked Dani to her feet. “Come on, baby, I’ll show you around your new home.”

  Once again he stooped, picked her up, and laid her over his shoulder. Dani knew that struggle was useless, so she lay still as he unlatched the door and stepped inside. He slung her at once to her feet, and she tottered briefly, then fell backward. The back of her head hit the wooden floor, sending fresh waves of pain through her skull. She lay still until most of the pain receded, her eyes shut tight.

  A light came on, and she opened her eyes to see Fontenot moving around with the flashlight. He rummaged through a rough sort of cabinet until he seemed to find what he wanted. Dani heard the sound of metal on wood, and then after a moment, a match made a blue spurt in the darkness. She watched as the wick of a kerosene lamp suddenly glowed, breaking up the darkness.

  Fontenot snapped off the flashlight and came to stand over her. The lamp made an amber glow on his face. Stooping down, he pulled the gag from Dani’s mouth, saying, “Now, yell all you want to. Nobody to hear you but gators.”

  Dani’s mouth was dry, and she gasped, “Why are you—doing this to me?”

  Fontenot leaned over and caught her face with one hand. Pushing his face close to hers, he grated, “You ain’t gonna stop Eddie Prejean from fryin’ in the chair!”

  He shoved her face back angrily, and started for the door.

  “You can’t leave me here!”

  Fontenot turned, his handsome face smiling viciously. “You’re a detective. Figure out how to get yourself out of this mess. Smart lady like you should be able to get loose pretty soon. But don’t try wadin’ through this bayou. It’s stiff with big gators.”

  “Please—don’t leave me—!”

  “You ain’t gonna’ die,” he said with finality. “There’s food and firewood. Boil the water before you drink it. Soon as Prejean’s dead meat, I’ll come back and turn you loose.”

  And then he was gone.

  Dani lay there as the engine roared into life, listening as it began to pull the boat away.

  Finally it faded into nothingness.

  She was alone now, as she had never been alone in her life.

  14

  No Exit

  * * *

  I’ve got to get out of here—!

  As the sound of the outboard died away, fading into silence, Dani’s mind fluttered like a bird in a sealed box. Coherence of thought gave way to a series of flashing impressions, and she kicked against the floor in an effort to roll over.

  He may never come back—he may leave me here to die!

  She succeeded in rolling over on her side, then tried to get to her feet. By doubling her legs she was able to get as far as putting her weight on her knees, but only by pressing her head against the rough
planks that made up the floor could she maintain that precarious balance—and the pressure on her head brought the blinding streaks of pain to her temples.

  With a short cry, she fell, rolling over on her back, her eyes closed against the pounding that seemed to drive the bones of her skull into her brain. The agony came like waves, beating against her like a hammer, then easing off, only to come again.

  Lie still, don’t try to move.

  She had no choice but to rest the back of her head against the rough flooring, but the discomfort of that was nothing compared to the pain of the headache brought on by Dax Fontenot’s blow.

  Disciplining herself, she lay quietly, waiting for the pain to subside. When it faded into a dull throbbing, she opened her eyes and looked around the room carefully without moving her head suddenly. The room was small, no more than ten feet square. Along one wall was a pair of bunk beds with faded, flat mattresses. Across from the bunks, cabinets were nailed to the wall; Dani noticed some jars and boxes in the upper cabinet, and pots and pans in the lower section. At the far end of the room, just under a window covered with a wooden guard, two unmatched wooden chairs sat at either end of a small kitchen table. On the wall, various gear, mostly fishing rods and nets, hung from nails.

  Dani became aware that she had a raging thirst. Her lips were cracked and dry, and her tongue was swollen.

  Got to get a drink—! But how?

  Dani ignored the thirst and lay quietly. She thought of the days she’d spent buried alive in the silo, along with Ben and Karl and the others. There had been times when she’d longed to run to the cement walls and beat her fists against them, to scream with frustration—but she never had.

  But there had been light and others to share the prison with her. People to talk to, things to do.

  She understood as she lay there that this was different. There was nobody—and there would be nobody.