Baton Rouge Bingo

by Greg Herren

  I never should have followed Fleming with Taylor in the car with me. I should have known better. What were you thinking, Scotty? That’s just it, you weren’t thinking. How many times have you put people you care about in danger because you don’t THINK?

  Stop it, that’s not going to help matters any. He’s alive, and you’re alive, and even if you are marooned out in the middle of the gulf, as long as we’re alive there’s a chance we can get out of this mess.

  I couldn’t help but smile down at him as he shifted again, rolling over onto his back. He started snoring softly. He looked so peaceful. I reached down and brushed a lock of hair away from his forehead. A surge of affection for him swept through my mind.

  He really was a sweet kid.

  How could his father throw him away like he was yesterday’s garbage?

  As long as I live, I’ll never understand how some people’s minds work.

  I crept back out of the little room as quietly as I could and softly shut the door behind me. Might as well let him sleep until I have some kind of idea what we can do to save ourselves.

  I went back up and onto the deck, taking another swig of water from the bottle. I swished it around in my dry mouth a few times before swallowing. I sat down in the shaded captain’s chair and looked out over the vast expanse of water. I hadn’t the slightest idea where we were. We could be out in the middle of the gulf, or we could just be a mile offshore. But we were drifting without power. No one would ever think to come looking for us out here—and it was a pretty safe bet AFAR had gotten rid of the Explorer somehow—probably sank it in the bayou or the salt marsh.

  At least it was insured, I thought bitterly. Burn in hell, you fucking bastards.

  I tried to remember the entire conversation I’d had with that bitch Diana Killeen. Despite the fact that she and her cohorts had basically set Taylor and me adrift at sea with a tiger in the hold of the boat, I believed her when she said they hadn’t killed Veronica. They hadn’t known what to do with the tiger—Veronica’s murder had put them into an extremely bad position, so much as I would’ve liked to believe the worst of the bitch and her buddies, I had to believe they were innocent in that regard. Whatever the reason behind someone shooting Veronica, it didn’t have anything to do with stealing the tiger or AFAR.

  I leaned back in the chair, putting my feet up on the dashboard. More importantly, what kind of game was Barney Fleming playing? I didn’t believe for one moment Rev Harper had sent goons to beat information out of him. If they had, they sure as hell wouldn’t have been scared off when Taylor and I got there. I knew from bitter experience that Harper only hired the best. No, if Harper’s men had been the ones to tie up Fleming, they would have taken Taylor and me prisoner as well.

  They certainly wouldn’t have been scared off and left without the information they were being paid to get.

  So he lied about that.

  He’d also led us straight into the arms of Diana Killeen and AFAR. He’d lied to them about us, which was why we were adrift at sea with a tiger.

  Yes, good old Dr. Fleming had some serious explaining to do once we got back to shore.

  Mom and Frank must be going crazy with worry, I thought, which made me want to get my hands on Barney Fleming all the more. It was bad enough that Dad was missing, but now Taylor and me, too?

  I sighed in relief as I remembered I’d had Taylor call Frank to tell him we were following Fleming. Frank knew that much at least—and while he might not think to look for us at sea, maybe he’d get it out of Fleming.

  I knew it was wrong, but I actually kind of hoped Frank beat it out of him.

  He certainly deserved whatever he got.

  But Dad was still missing, on top of everything else. Fleming—and AFAR—clearly didn’t have anything to do with Dad being taken.

  Fleming was the connection between Dad and AFAR?

  Okay, Scotty, reason it out, I told myself as I took another slug of water and wiped sweat from my forehead. I slipped my T-shirt over my head and started thinking.

  This whole thing had started because of Veronica Porterie. She was the common denominator for everything that was going on. She masterminded stealing the tiger. She’d been murdered. And through her family, she was also a link to the deduct box.

  I thought about that for a moment. Okay, her grandfather had been a cohort of Huey Long’s, one of the governor’s closest friends and advisers. Dr. Fleming claimed Governor Long had passed the deduct box along to Porterie for safekeeping, but he was killed in a car accident the same night Governor Long was shot to death in the state capital, and had never told anyone where he’d hidden it. The people who’d kidnapped Dad—and there was no reason to believe Rev Harper wasn’t behind that—were looking for Porterie’s long-lost diary, in which he recorded the location where he hid the box.

  I sighed and took another swig of water.

  None of it made any sense to me, quite frankly—I didn’t see why the deduct box, some eighty years later, would be of any value to anyone.

  Certainly it didn’t have enough value to make finding it worth the risk of kidnapping someone.

  And why, of all people, Dad?

  Even if they believed Veronica had told Mom something last weekend, wouldn’t it make more sense to kidnap Mom?

  No, what made the most sense was for them to kidnap VERONICA.

  Whoever had killed her clearly wasn’t looking for the deduct box.

  I took another swig of the water.

  Maybe the problem with figuring all this out is I’m assuming everything is all part and parcel of the same thing, when maybe it’s separate things.

  Maybe Dad’s kidnapping had nothing to do with Veronica’s murder.

  The kidnappers didn’t mention the diary when they called—they mentioned the deduct box.

  They wouldn’t have killed Veronica before they got the diary from her, and if they had the diary, there was no need to kidnap Dad.

  My head was starting to hurt. I was almost there—but the answer was just out of reach in my head. It was so fucking frustrating.

  I took a deep breath, stood up, and started pacing.

  It was only logical to conclude whoever killed Veronica was not the same person—or persons—who’d kidnapped Dad.

  I really wanted to talk to Barney Fleming again.

  If AFAR wasn’t interested in the deduct box and hadn’t been involved in Veronica’s murder, why were they involved with the leading Huey Long scholar in the country? What was the connection there?

  How had he come into contact with Veronica and AFAR?

  The deduct box—he had to be involved in that part of the story.

  Another unexpected roar from below made me almost jump out of my skin, and I had to grab the dashboard for balance as the boat went up a large swell.

  The sea was getting rougher, and I’d noticed too that the wind was picking up.

  I went down the stairs to the second level and heard another noise—a low moan—coming from Taylor’s cabin. Remembering how thirsty I’d been, I went into the little kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water, and carried it back to his cabin. As my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I saw him sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

  “Scotty?” he said faintly. “Where are we? What happened?”

  I sat down next to him on the bunk and pressed the water bottle into his hand. “Here, take a drink. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I think so. I’m a little confused and groggy. How long have I been asleep?” He downed half the bottle in a couple of quick gulps before belching loudly. “Where are we?” he asked again. “What happened? The last thing I remember was those people had tied us up and were asking you some questions.”

  No sense in sugarcoating anything, I figured. “We’re adrift in the gulf in a boat with no power,” I said. “And no way of calling for help.”

  Almost on cue, Mike roared so loudly it seemed like the boat shook.

  “Oh, yes, Mike the Tiger is belowdecks.”

  H
e shook his head. “We’re adrift at sea with a tiger?” He surprised me by starting to laugh. “How Life of Pi.”

  I stared at him, worried that he’d lost his mind. “Life of pie?”

  “It’s a book, by Yann Martel?” He stared at me. “We read it in my lit class last fall. It’s a great book, about a young kid stranded at sea in a lifeboat with a tiger after a shipwreck. It’s a great metaphor about—oh, never mind, it doesn’t matter.” He stood up and wobbled a bit, putting his hand on my shoulder to steady himself. “Wow, what a headache I’ve got. What are we going to do, Scotty?”

  “I wish I knew.” I stood up. “Come on, let’s go up and get you some fresh air.” I walked alongside him to the hallway and up the stairs to the deck.

  “There’s a storm coming.” He pointed off into the distance.

  I followed his finger and felt a chill go down my spine. Dark clouds and that misty-looking sky surely meant not only a storm, but a bad one. I could see lightning flashing—no wonder the sea was getting rougher.

  This was most definitely not good.

  “I don’t suppose your cell phone has service?” I asked, turning my back on the storm.

  He pulled out his phone and looked at it. “No, no bars. And it’s almost dead anyway.” He looked at the compass on the dashboard. “We’re pointed south—I wonder…” He grabbed hold of the wheel and fought with it, slowly getting it to start turning. “Can you help me with this?”

  I obliged, grabbing hold and yanking in the same direction he was. “What are we doing?”

  “If that storm is coming toward us, we’re better off if the front of the boat is facing the direction we need to go to get ashore,” he replied. “The storm is going to drive water in front of it, so hopefully it’ll push us that way, too. It makes more sense to be pointing in the same direction the storm will be moving us, don’t you think?” He shrugged and frowned. “I don’t know, to be honest. My only experience with boats is going waterskiing or fishing on lakes—not the open sea. But I don’t suppose it can hurt, right?”

  The front of the boat slowly started coming around, and the muscles in my shoulders were starting to ache as we kept fighting the wheel. But finally, we were facing north according to the compass, and we both let go of the wheel with a sigh of relief. Taylor started rooting around, opening cabinets and compartments. I didn’t ask him what he was looking for—he’d tell me when he was ready. I closed my eyes and let my mind wander.

  I must have still been groggy from the drug because I dozed off, not waking until Taylor’s excited shout jolted me awake.

  “What?”

  He grinned at me, holding up a gun of some sort. “I knew there had to be an emergency flare gun on the boat somewhere.” He gestured to the little cabinet that was open. “There’s a first aid kit, too—I took some aspirin, you might want to if you have a headache from whatever it was they shot us up with.” He tossed me a packet and walked to the rear end of the boat. He pointed the gun straight up in the air and pulled the trigger. A red flare shot up into the clear blue sky, floating in a slow arc when it reached its full height, trailing a tail of red smoke. He grinned back at me. “There’s a shitload of flares. Every half hour or so we can fire off another one. Someone is eventually bound to see one and come rescue us.”

  “Pretty smart,” I said. “I would have never thought of looking for a flare gun.”

  He shrugged off the praise like it was nothing. “Why would you? If you’ve never been on a boat before.”

  “But you’ve never—”

  “My dad always taught me you never go out on a boat without a flare gun, in case you get into distress—that way you can always signal for help.” His face colored at the mention of his father. “So I figured there was probably one on board somewhere.” His face screwed up. “I don’t think they meant for us to die out here, you know?”

  “You don’t?”

  He shook his head. “Well, sure, it could happen—you never know what’s going to happen when you’re at sea—but they left water for us in the refrigerator, enough to last us for a few days, if we’re careful with it. They didn’t get rid of the flare gun or the flares. They just took the keys so we couldn’t use the engine, and they disabled the radio. Besides, if they wanted to kill us, they could have just killed us back on land and fed us to the alligators in the bayou.”

  Much as I didn’t want to give Diana Killeen credit for anything, he did have a point. As long as we kept our heads and didn’t panic, eventually we would have found the flare gun—and we had. Now it was just a matter of firing off the flares and hoping someone saw them before the storm arrived.

  I glanced off into the distance. The storm was coming closer, and it looked even nastier than it had when Taylor had first pointed it out to me.

  And, of course, there was a thousand-pound tiger down belowdecks.

  When was the last time he’d been fed? The way the boat was moving up and down with the swells couldn’t be doing much for his nerves. If the storm scared him enough, he could probably break down that door with ease.

  And without a weapon of some sort, there wasn’t any way we could protect ourselves from him.

  They couldn’t have known how any of this would turn out when they cast us adrift.

  How could anyone claim to be for animal rights yet abandon a beautiful animal like that at sea? No matter what Taylor said, there wasn’t any guarantee that we’d be rescued or would have figured out a way to save ourselves. And had Mike not roared, I wouldn’t have even known he was down in the hold. I could have just as easily walked down the stairs, opened the door, and found myself staring at a live, hungry, angry, and frightened tiger.

  And no matter how used he was to people, that was a combination that might have added up to one dead Scotty.

  Diana Killeen just better hope she never comes face-to-face with me again, I thought angrily. I hope they throw the book at that bitch.

  “Scotty!” Taylor shouted excitedly. “Look!”

  In the distance in the east, a boat was heading our way rather quickly.

  It was a Coast Guard cutter.

  Thank you, Goddess, I prayed with gratitude, and the sense of relief that swept through me was instantaneous and staggering.

  Oh, thank you, Universe, for the United States Coast Guard!

  Chapter Twelve

  The Devil

  Temptation

  I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling.

  I had probably the worst cottonmouth ever, and I also had to go to the bathroom.

  Frank was lying next to me in the bed, gently snoring. He was lying on his side with his back to me, and I could feel warmth radiating off his skin. Is there anything nicer than being in bed with Frank? I thought, a smile creeping across my face. I didn’t want to get up. I turned my head to look at the clock and was startled to see it was already after noon.

  I sat straight up and hurried to the bathroom.

  As I brushed my teeth, I stared at my face in the mirror. I was a little sunburned from yesterday, and my lips were still chapped. I’d sweated out a lot of water while out on that boat, and I definitely needed to rehydrate.

  I hadn’t gotten back to the apartment until around three in the morning and had barely been able to get my clothes off before collapsing into bed and going to sleep.

  The Coast Guard had been wonderful to Taylor and me. We hadn’t just gotten lucky that they’d seen the flare—they’d received an anonymous tip about a boat in distress, with our approximate location. So the cutter had already been out looking when Taylor fired the flare. Diana Killeen or one of her gang must have phoned it in, but it didn’t soften the way I felt about them. Sure, they’d called in a tip, but the gulf is big and there was no way they could guarantee the Coast Guard would find us.

  Not to mention what might have happened had they not found us before that storm hit.

  The Coast Guard gave us sandwiches and water, and a medic they had on board had checked us both out as th
e cutter headed toward shore, towing the boat behind us. I kind of wished my phone’s battery hadn’t died, because the look on their faces when I told them there was a tiger belowdecks was priceless. They’d originally considered riding out the storm at sea until I told them about Mike. Instead, they secured a towrope to the boat we’d been on—after checking first to make sure I wasn’t bullshitting about the tiger—and then made a beeline for shore.

  They also radioed ahead, and somehow managed to arrange for the veterinary school at LSU to bring his traveling cage down to the Coast Guard station at the Port of Baton Rouge.

  Taylor and I didn’t make it all the way upriver to Baton Rouge, though. They dropped us off in New Orleans and in fact delivered us right into the waiting hands of the New Orleans Police Department. Detectives Venus Casanova and Blaine Tujague, to be exact—both of whom I have already become well acquainted with over the years. I used to get on their nerves, I think, but I’ve proven myself to them over the years and they’ve become, if not friends, at least more tolerant of me.

  Venus is a tall black woman probably in her late forties who is always dressed to kill and clearly spends time in the gym keeping her body in top physical condition. She’s very pretty, and she wears her hair buzzed down close to her scalp. Her face is very hard to read, and when Taylor and I were escorted ashore by two uniformed Coast Guard men (who looked sexy as hell in their uniforms) she shook her head. “You know,” she said with no facial expression, “when the Coast Guard called in, I just had a feeling it was you.”

  “That’s not totally true,” her partner said with a grin. “They told us who you were.”

  Blaine Tujague is about my age, give or take a few years, and is just as gay as me. We’re about the same height, but he’s a little more thickly muscled than I am. He has bluish-black curly hair and bright-blue eyes. He’s pretty attractive, to be honest, and I saw Taylor gaping at him with that I’d like to tap that facial expression I’ve seen on so many other gay men’s faces over the years. I grinned to myself, but would have to warn Taylor about Detective Tujague. He lives with his long-term boyfriend in the lower Garden District. Blaine always wears dress slacks and a blazer, but his shirts are always a little small for his bulging muscles.