by Brian Hodge
Weeping, then, crying the tears that April could not. Where there was thwarted hope, the pain seemed infinitely greater than where there was none. Moaning the name of God, then he could pray no more, hadn’t the words for it, nor the heart. Not when rage came easier.
“We trusted you!” he screamed at Mama Charity. “She was supposed to be … to be protected from this kind of shit! We trusted you and it didn’t work. It didn’t work!”
“Ain’t no miracle worker, child. And no magic in the world can stop a poison like that.” Mama Charity held April’s hands up, lifting them before his eyes. “How’s her nails look to you? Like she got all she came here with?”
He frantically followed the shape of each, the contours, the way she filed them intact. “Yes.”
“Then maybe they didn’t have time to take no more of her away than just the next three days.”
He listened to her voice and grappled for something to hold on to, the last shreds of hope. How easy it must be for the desperate and needy to fall prey to charlatans.
Mama Charity turned to Moreno, assessing every wound. “But you. You’re not so lucky as she was. He got some of your hair. Even got away with a chunk of you, got your flesh … blood … bone. You know what he can do to you with that, if he gets the chance?”
“How much of a head start has he got on me?” Moreno asked.
Granvier checked the clock. “Twenty minutes since we came in. So no more than twenty-five.”
“Find me a clean shirt.” Pacing about the kitchen, then, while Granvier went looking. As if to keep himself revving, to slow down would mean surrender. Talking to himself, or Justin and Mama Charity, it wasn’t clear. “Who’d they come for, anyway, the guy shut away out in the temple? They didn’t come for us, not any three guys with pistols, they didn’t come here expecting to do much shooting. Wasn’t us. Wasn’t us.”
He glanced at his watch, then out the window overlooking the backyard, the killing fields. “You got any neighbors close enough to call the law out here?”
Mama appeared uncertain. “Close enough to hear. But maybe not close enough to be sure where the noise was coming from.”
“You got two dead bodies out there. All kinds of problems you don’t want, if they get found tonight.”
“Weight them down, sink them in the lake,” Justin said, rousing. Anything to take his mind from April, if only for a moment. “I’ve done that before.”
Granvier came back with a red checkered flannel shirt, helped Moreno into it, and every bend of his left arm brought a grimace of gritting teeth.
“Was my last husband’s,” Mama Charity said.
“At least he was bigger than me.”
He next put on his bomber jacket, and for all the damage, he looked amazingly intact. As long as you didn’t look too deeply into his eyes. He was holding so much at bay…
And Justin knew he was never going to see him again. To race against time and mortality was the quest of a noble fool. Perhaps Moreno was simply too proud to die before them, helpless.
Certainly too proud for the goodbyes that he deserved.
Dressed, ready to go, keys in hand and in his waistband the SIG Sauer, reloaded after Granvier had gotten a fresh magazine from the trunk of the car.
His reflexes were still sharp. Moreno was the first to wheel on the back door when the knob turned, gun held in the bandaged right hand, lowering it only when Mama Charity told him it was okay.
Napoleon Trintignant stood in the doorway, eyes hazy with an imposing transcendence.
“Macandal,” said Napoleon. “He tells me I should maybe leave him ahead of time. I think I don’t have much room for arguing.”
Chapter 28
Combustion
Beyond the obvious, Moreno had only one hard-and-fast rule regarding clients, even when it was a freebie to an old friend: They could see him bleed, but never sweat. Sweat played hell with their confidence.
He had to leave these people and leave them now. If they needed a figure to rally around to keep their wits, maybe the old mambo could fill the bill from now on. Tough lady, with a definite charisma. She would be hard pressed to crack under strain.
Moreno ran out to his car, suffering a plague of dizziness and raw throbbing wounds. Finger stump and arm wrapped tight, the bullet wound in the side packed off and taped over.
He leaned into the trunk, probing in the shadowed moonlight, pressed a pair of hidden catches to unlock a panel. The car didn’t look like much, a standard Olds, well maintained, but there were a couple of custom touches and this was one of them. He lifted the panel lid and took out something he’d never before had cause to use outside a target range: a 9mm submachine gun, the Heckler & Koch MP5, popular on the antiterrorist front. Compact, easy to maneuver, good for precision work. He then removed the pair of extra magazines and three grenades. He’d acquired all of them a few years ago when crossing the path of a friend from another life, another career, who now dealt in potent firepower. Forbidden stuff, but wasn’t that part of the allure? Sure it was. He had just liked having the ordnance around in case one day something went completely to hell.
Call him a visionary.
Moreno got rolling in a roar of engine and wide-eyed kamikaze verve. Weapons on the seat beside him, including the knife he’d taken away; given a chance he would return it to its owner, sheathed in throat or rectum, he wouldn’t be particular.
Moreno gunned through rural Louisiana by night, a heavy foot and frantic red-line speeds. Twenty-five minutes behind the man who had become dark legend among a terrified peasantry … and he could do this, could pull it off. Free, now, to sweat it, triple-digit speed on the straightaways.
It was all guesswork from here, anticipating the enemy’s moves. Clearly, the hit squad come to eliminate the Haitian kid had blown it in more ways than one. Not only had they arrived unprepared for a firefight, they had breached the truce between Justin and Mullavey. Without knowing they’d done so, at least until their leader had gotten a look at Christophe. He no doubt would have figured out right then who this extra company was.
The djab blanc’s next destination would have to be his boss. To update him on these new developments that were too risky to be discussed over the phone, and warn him that retribution may well be on its way.
The restaurant, then.
By the time Moreno hit the southbound causeway over Lake Pontchartrain, he knew just how he would handle it once he got there.
Eel’s shoulder had nearly quit bleeding by the time he got Stockton’s car to Charbonneau’s. He used his remote to open the delivery entrance, swung in off Toulouse, and parked in one of the empty side spots. Sat for a moment, anybody else out here? He looked to be alone, and stepped out beneath the harsh glare of the roof lights.
Shoulder aching, but he had hurt worse, could get patched up at a more convenient time. The red shirt helped disguise the fact that he’d been bleeding, though not entirely. He stripped away his jacket, folded it so that its bloodstained shoulder didn’t show, and held it draped it over the wound, very casual.
He let himself in through the kitchen entrance, immediately assaulted by the reek of food, something his stomach didn’t need at all. Eel ignored the bustle of the cooks and floor staff, and flagged down one of Nathan’s bodyguards.
“Where is he?” Eel asked.
The guy pointed straight up. “Third floor. What’s the problem? You look like shit.”
“Phone him. Tell him I need to meet him on the stairs.” Eel did not wait, threaded through the hall between waiters and waitresses balancing trays of food. Heavy dinner crowd for midweek, nine o’clock. These souls of bovine complacency who settled for so little in their lives, who never learned to seek beyond the mundane. Whatever sins he had committed and mistakes he had made, joining that herd had never been one of them.
Eel hauled himself up the stairs, using the railing, and had to pause at the second floor landing. Winded, dizzy — couldn’t shrug off blood loss like a cold. The gari
sh old wallpaper and carpeted steps, bordello red, were too much for tired eyes.
Another half a flight, and Nathan Forrest appeared above him in rolled shirtsleeves.
“Trouble,” said Eel, though surely Nathan could tell. “On his way here now, I think. It’s what I’d do. And it’ll be bad.”
Nathan said nothing, just grew harder around the eyes, rockier in the jawline, waiting. Eel had always appreciated the way Nathan never wasted time with needless questions.
Eel sketched it out quickly; further details could wait. And no point in blaming anyone other than himself for walking into a situation they hadn’t expected. Curiously, he did not fear Nathan’s wrath. The realization had grown quietly over the years: Nathan was more afraid of him than he could ever be of Nathan. For what Eel could do should they ever become enemies.
Nathan’s hand grew tight upon the railing. “Who was this guy out there?”
“I have no idea, but he was a professional. Military training, no question.” Still thinking about the way he’d been disarmed of his knife; Eel had heard of the technique, had never known anyone with enough balls to do it. Someone like that, you had to grant him respect.
“So Gray wasn’t bluffing, then, when he told Andrew he had backup.” Nathan shook his head. “Numbnuts brother of mine, turns out he was right after all, and after I told him he should’ve called the bluff. Well, fuck me.”
“Your wife’s up there?” Eel said. “I saw her car downstairs.”
Nathan nodded. “Have to get Kathleen out of here. I’ll get one of the guys to drive her out to Andrew’s.”
Eel understood. Nathan had never even told her about the old vaults below, much less their use. And swore that he never would. One fewer who knew was one fewer who could betray.
“Get going,” said Nathan, “I’ll catch up with you down in the vaults.” He turned, jogged a couple steps up, then turned back once more. “This nigra you say’s on his way: Can you stop him, sooner or later?”
Eel reached into his shirt pocket, smiling like a man after trinkets for a child. He held out his hand, look, see what I have for you. Hair, ripped from a scalp, and a severed piece of finger.
Nathan’s eyes widened, and as always, it was good to impress the boss.
Moreno hit the dinner crowd like an unnatural disaster.
He left his Olds on the street half a block up, concealing as much as he was able beneath his bomber jacket, striding into the flow of sidewalk traffic. Ahead, a whisper of Bourbon Street revels wafted in the night air, with a splash of neon.
They had two guys waiting outside for him, across the Street. Moreno made them as soon as they started to move, the only dumb bastards out here who didn’t look like tourists. Moreno dropped them on the pavement with the SIG before they could get a shot off, and all pretense of blending in with the civilians was gone. Tourists scattered as if realizing they had just blundered onto a hunting preserve.
He stuck the SIG back into his waistband and charged through the doors of Charbonneau’s, swinging the Heckler & Koch down, then around and up after carrying it slung against his back. He was hardwired now, sliding along the wall. No bad guys here, it seemed, just a very surprised maître d’ in a tux. Moreno glared at him, then pointed to the doors.
“Get your ass out of here. Now.”
Moreno swung past and into the main dining room to announce his presence by ripping a burst into the ceiling. Nothing like automatic gunfire to seize attention. Silverware dropped, voices rose, and everywhere was born chaos and scramble. He stalked through it all — ”Out! Out! Get out!” — punctuating with random bursts to the ceiling, and they looked only too happy to comply.
Doubtful that Forrest’s people would be expecting an arrival like this, but he wanted spectacle, pandemonium, and above all, a building emptied of innocents. When another pair of soldiers broke cover while the dining room was thinning of stragglers, Moreno took care of them too, a violent object lesson to all who remained that this crazed man meant business.
No sign of the albino, and with the restaurant quickly flushing everyone onto the street, Moreno felt a scrape along his nerves, like waiting for a bomb to detonate. He picked up the pace, yanking out the emptied first magazine, discarding it in the spill of a busboy’s tub. He replaced it, chambered a fresh round, and lurched down the main hallway to the kitchens. He found more cowering back there — cooks, service staff, a couple of diners — and herded them out front.
He sagged against the wall for a moment. How soon before the police? He frowned. Wet along his left side, again; leaking from the wound into the seat of his pants. Or maybe he had a fresh one. Sometimes you got so far beyond yourself that you couldn’t tell.
Moreno grunted back into motion, fought swirling hallways to make sure the storage rooms and kitchen were empty.
Stopping a moment, then, to check the ovens. Gas — well, hello. He shut them down, and when the last flames flickered out, he doused the pilot light with a pan of water.
He cranked the gas anew and let it hiss behind him as he found the stairs. Let the weapon lead the way, sliding along an inner wall, and he was breathing heavily by now. Red walls, red stairs, like crawling up something’s throat, push it, this was his life he was racing for here.
Second floor. Office space, all desks and computer terminals and file cabinets. All the claims to simple business legitimacy, and Moreno sprinted up the stairs—
Third floor. Living quarters, just as vacant, TV playing to an audience of none. If he touched the sofa, could he still feel the warm spot? Undoubtedly. Moreno spun from one room to another to the next, firing through the occasional closet door just to be sure. Drenched in sweat, with every second’s tick he thought he could feel the noose cinching tighter around his throat.
He bailed down the stairs. What an orderly arrangement of his life Nathan Forrest had wrought. Stratified layers of home, livelihood, and shadow life, together in one public fortress, as if that might somehow protect him. But how easily it could fall to someone who no longer had anything to lose.
Moreno took one final branch yet to be explored. Another set of doors put him in the garage bay. Clean concrete slab, harsh overhead lights ricocheting off the finish of half a dozen cars.
He freed one of the grenades riding his belt. Pulled the pin and sent it rolling beneath the nearest car, then slammed the door and charged back up the hallway. Solid door, must be, for it held. The blast was a muffled thump, concussive through the floor. With any luck at all, chain reaction would set off each of the gas tanks in turn, melt those cars down to their wheel rims.
He could hear sirens now, and took a moment to gaze out over the dining room, devoid of life and commerce. Knowing the ghastly liberation that comes with imminent loss of life. Too late, he’d been too late. So what more could he do to hurt the enemy with however little time he had left?
To hell with this charade of four-star food and pampering service. He wasn’t staying here to die in police custody, what a joke that would be, after the life he’d led.
And just how much gas would have filled the kitchen by now, anyway?
Moreno took the last two grenades, yanked their pins, and sent them bouncing down the kitchen hallway. Running, then, with all the strength he no longer thought he had, hellhounds on his tail, past the dining room, past the maître d’s station, just beneath the foyer chandelier when they blew.
Everything shaking around him as he slammed through the doors, Toulouse Street a gallery of onlookers. Moreno dropped to the sidewalk and rolled to the side, out of the worst of harm’s way. Few flames — these were largely contained by the inner walls — but the shock wave swept the windows from their frames. A blizzard of glass for the curious, in a sweeping roar of gas ignition. Toulouse erupted with the voice of the throng, while two blocks away, no one on Bourbon Street would even have heard the noise.
This town was just one weird juxtaposition after another.
He scraped himself up from the sidewalk and mad
e for his car, ears numbed. Fingers pointing at him, yeah it was me, hard to conceal guilt when he was dragging a submachine gun.
At least no one rushed up to ask about his well-being; they simply cleared a path.
His purpose was renewed by the time he got behind the wheel. Maybe the djab blanc and Nathan were on their way to fortify themselves at Andrew Jackson Mullavey’s estate. Brotherly love, brother’s keeper, maybe, maybe, maybe. It was hope. It was fuel for the engine within that he could no longer shut down. Purpose was everything. Purpose was life.
Moreno wrenched the car into reverse and floored it, backing away from the smoke and littered glass and architectural carnage, and all who had stayed to watch. Wrong way up Toulouse, in reverse no less, and he could hear the orchestrated wail of sirens upon sirens. He cut the wheel sharply at the corner and dropped it into drive, gunned it another block out of the French Quarter and shot across the four-lane breadth of North Rampart against a red light. After Basin he was back on narrow streets again, the whitewashed ancient wall of the St. Louis Cemetery on his right, project housing his left. Homeboys out killing time and bottles and the rest of their lives.
He eased off a couple blocks later, no idea where he was, but directional sense was still keen. West, he wanted west. He went stairstepping through the city blocks, knowing he would eventually pick up Highway 61, the Airline Highway, his ticket to Mullavey’s front door.
He didn’t know when the police latched on to him, only that red lights had become his constant companion through the urban lowlands. With its flat sprawl and wide thoroughfares, it was like another city altogether.
Burying the speedometer, it was all he could do to hold on, thread the needle through too much traffic and try not to think about the way every bandage had soaked through. He was lubed with his own blood and the sweat that stung his blinking eyes.