by Blake Banner
He shook his head. “You’re mad, Simone. You’re out of your mind.”
“We haven’t got time for this. Everybody clear?” They all nodded. “Simone, wait for us at the gate. Within ten minutes, we should have a truck. We’ll go back to the hotel.”
I hunkered down and eased open the front door a few feet. The wind was coming from the southeast, so at the front door, we were in the lee of the house and the gale was not so bad. I spoke to Simone as she prepared to slip out. “Crawl on your belly until you get to the trees. They will protect you from the wind and should keep you invisible at this distance.”
She slithered out and crawled left along the veranda. After a few moments, she had disappeared from sight.
“OK, Bat, now you. When you get to the end of the decking, we’ll go. Ready?”
He nodded and slipped out, and within seconds he’d vanished.
“OK, Carmichael, let’s go. You do anything stupid and I’ll kill you.”
We couldn’t crawl with our wrists cuffed, so we stepped out and crouch-ran to the left. Then, we scrambled down the steps, ran a few yards to the trees, and took cover behind a large oak.
I took aim at the large, black bulk, where I estimated the windshield to be. My spare ammo was at that moment drifting gently toward Sara Bayou, so I kept my fire to a short burst of three rounds. I let off three bursts and paused a second. It was hard to tell for sure, but I thought I could hear shouting. Then, there were flashes of flame from the shadow, and reports like firecrackers, which were whipped away by the wind.
I hissed, “Move!” and dragged Carmichael forward six paces, belly-flopped and let off three more bursts. I saw four flashes from among the trees beyond the Dodge, scrambled to my feet, and ran another six paces. I was about to drop and fire again when a noise, like the Earth ripping open, tore the night in half.
A powerful gust of wind knocked me to my knees, dragging Carmichael with me. There was a screech and a grinding of timbers and the house seemed to fold in on itself, slide to the left and collapsed in a massive heap. As it did so, the clapboards on the walls came loose. The wind gathered them up and hurled them into the air like spray, followed by the slates from the roof.
Then things went really bad. The headlamps on the Dodge came on and the wheels ground on the wet gravel, kicking up stones and mud. I opened up at the engine and the windshield, spraying them with bullets, and from the trees, Bat did the same. But the Dodge was moving, the wind was insane and we were unstable on our feet. If any of the rounds found their mark, they didn’t kill the driver, whoever he was. The truck spun on a dime and hurtled up the hill.
I screamed at Bat, “Simone! Simone!” and we took off after the truck. But Carmichael was a lead weight on my arm, and it was a good five hundred yards from the house to the gate. In that gale, the mud and the rain, it was an impossible task. My only hope was that she had not got there yet, that they would get there before her.
We sought the cover of the trees on the left of the drive, and half-ran, half-marched. Even at that pace, it took us a good five or six minutes to get to the gates. They stood gaping, wet, iron stencils against a wild, inky sky. There was no sign of Simone. I went in among the trees, screaming her name above the whistle and howl of the wind and the deafening sigh of the branches, but there was no trace of her, no sign of her anywhere.
Finally, Bat and Carmichael grabbed me and pulled me toward the gates, shouting that the only chance to get her back was to get to town, to the Soniat. They hadn’t killed her. That meant they wanted to use her, to trade her in exchange for Carmichael.
We tried to keep the forest between us and the wind, but even so it was not easy. The gale was strong, gusting at times to hurricane force, I was sure. It tore branches from the trees and hurled them across the road. It set up powerful eddies and twisters that lashed rain with such force, you felt it would tear your skin from your face. It took us almost twenty minutes to walk the four hundred yards from the gate to the bridge that spanned Sara Bayou on Tunica Road. When we finally got there, what we found was no more than what we had expected, but still, my heart sank at the sight.
The bridge, made of solid, riveted iron, had been completely overwhelmed by the swollen river. The good news was that there was no way that Jackson and Ivory had driven across that bridge. They would have been forced to turn back and head north, to cross further upstream, giving us more time. The bad news was that we ourselves had maybe one chance in a thousand of making it across alive. If the water didn’t get us, the wind would for sure.
I gathered Bat and Carmichael close in a huddle and shouted in their ears. “Our belts!” I pointed at the rail that ran along the bridge. “All three of them! We loop our arms through and give each other support! We stay on the near side! The bridge protects us from the wind, and the water pushes us against the frame!”
They nodded that they understood. We removed our belts and looped them around the rail so that together they formed a strong anchor to the bridge. We stayed on the windward side, so that the frame of the bridge gave us some protection from the gale; and at the same time, the current of the engorged river, rather than dragging us away, crushed us against the iron parapet.
The bridge was one hundred and seventy-eight yards long, and crossing it, even with the provisions we had made, was one of the most exhausting and painful things I have ever done. The pressure of the water against our legs was enormous, and it hammered our bodies, painfully and relentlessly, against the hard iron of the bridge’s frame. The three of us had to take each step huddled together, so we could all keep a grip on the three belts, the only thing that stood between us and almost certain death. Each step had to be coordinated against the wind and the current, and taken together, with the lashing rain in our faces and the gale screaming through the iron arches of the structure.
It took us a full fifteen minutes to cover one hundred and seventy-eight yards, and when we finally got to the far side, we had lost the protection of the forest and the furious wind lashed and whipped us with steel needles of rain. Clinging to each other for support and added weight against the gale, we struggled to the nearest hedgerow and collapsed in its shelter.
From there, by stages, we made it at last to Dauphin Street and the shelter of the stone buildings. The street lights were out and the roads were rivers, a foot deep in water. There was nobody to be seen but us. Only a mad person would be out on a night like this.
Finally, at four AM, we arrived at the hotel and collapsed through the door, drenched, bruised, and exhausted. I hammered on the bell at the reception desk and yelled for Luis. Then I turned to Bat. “Organize some coffee and toast. Don’t let this son of a bitch out of your sight. I’ll be down in five minutes. Then you two can get dried.”
I dragged my aching body up the stairs, toweled myself dry, and changed my clothes. Every part of me was screaming out for rest and sleep, but I was not done yet, not by a long way. For what I was going to do, I needed the cover of the storm, and I needed to do it before Jackson and Ivory got back.
When I got down, I found Luis in his dressing gown, fussing over Carmichael and Bat. There was a large pot of coffee on the table and a stack of hot rolls.
“What happened? What happened to you?”
I snarled, “We fell in the bayou. We are going to need more coffee and more rolls. Go!”
He scurried away back to the kitchen. I turned to Bat and Carmichael.
“Go get dried. Carmichael, I may be wrong about you, and if I am, I apologize in advance for what I am going to do. But it has to be done. You are under arrest, you understand? I am putting you in the care of Bat Hays and David Hirschfield. If you try to escape, Bat will kill you without hesitation.” I turned to Bat. “Do not let him out of your sight, not to sleep, not to go to the can. He is under lock and key at all times until I get back.”
Carmichael was shaking his head. “Lacklan, do not listen to that woman! She is evil!”
Bat interrupted him, talking to me lik
e I was insane. “Where the hell are you going?”
“Baton Rouge, into the storm.”
Twenty SIX
It’s a matter of principle with me. If my life is on the line and somebody asks me where I am going, I lie. It makes good economic sense.
I borrowed a large rain-mac from Hirschfield and went back into the gale. I’d seen what I wanted earlier, as we were approaching the hotel. It was one block away in the parking lot outside the mall. It was a big Dodge RAM weighing in around eight metric tons with an engine that could scale mount Everest. I hammered the small blade of my Swiss Army knife into the lock, fiddled around with it, and after ten seconds I was inside. I twisted the fat red to the thin red and gently stroked the green, and we were in business.
I had told Bat and Carmichael I was going to Baton Rouge, but I had no intention of doing that. I was pretty sure that, even if the documents I was looking for were at Wilberforce’s offices, it would be almost impossible to lay hands on them in the time I had available. There was a much easier, more direct route to what I wanted. Wilberforce himself, and I was pretty sure I knew where he was.
I took the longer route, via the Full Moon and Jackson, because the shorter way, through St. Francisville, was going to take me deep into the storm, and in the end it would take longer—if I made it at all.
The truck had a range of spotlights on the roof and powerful headlamps, it was heavy, and it gripped the road like it had talons, even in the torrential downpour. I hit fifty going south on Route 61, though I slowed after the crossroads because I had the wind on my right and it kept threatening to blow me off the road whenever I got over forty miles per hour. Even so, I made it to Wilberforce’s stack of cuboids within the hour.
I turned in at his drive and it didn’t surprise me to see light coming from his windows. He was the kind of man who would have his own generator. I pulled up outside his entrance—you couldn’t really call it a door. It was more like an elaborate construction of boulders and mossy banks under an arched, organic portico with a massive, oak doorway set in the middle.
When I climbed out of the cab, I could see him silhouetted in one of his vast, plate glass windows, holding a glass and watching me. I staggered to the shelter of the porch, then rang the bell and hammered on the door with my fist.
It was eventually opened by a guy in a white jacket, with white gloves on. He frowned at me like I was crazy. Before he could say anything, I told him, “I need to see Mr. Wilberforce right now. It is very urgent. I know he’s here.”
He looked at me like I was everything that was wrong with the world and said, “Please wait. I’ll see if he is in. What is your name?”
I put my hand on the door and smiled a smile that was designed to freeze his blood. “I will not wait outside, pal. Take a look at the weather. Come to that, I won’t wait inside. I’m not in the mood to wait. He’s in. I told you he’s in. And my name is, The Guy Who’s Going to Break All Your Bones If You Don’t Take Me to Wilberforce Now!”
He stepped back.
I stepped in and slammed the door behind me. “Where?”
He swallowed hard, turned, and led the way up a broad flight of wooden stairs encased in a glass tower, onto an expansive landing and through a vast set of highly polished blond wood doors into a broad room with parquet floors, a large copper fireplace in the middle of the floor, and an entire wall of glass, looking out onto the madness of the tempest that was Sarah.
Wilberforce was standing, watching me, with one hand in his pocket and the other holding a drink. He said, “Stephan, who is this man?”
Stephan began to babble an apology. I smacked him in the back of the head with the butt of my Sig, and as he went down I pointed the business end at Wilberforce. He didn’t look fazed.
“Who are you?”
“That isn’t important. I haven’t much time, and you should know that I have killed at least five men tonight, and I have lost count of how many I have killed in my life. Right now, you are part of the solution. That’s good for you. The moment you become part of the problem, I will kill you. But what is really bad for you, is if you are both. Because then, I will do very bad things to you. Do you understand me?”
I have to hand it to him. He was cool. When he spoke, his voice was steady and even.
“Of course I understand you. It is perfectly simple. What do you want?”
“Papers. I want all the documents relating to the sale and/or development of Charles and Sarah Carmichael’s properties.”
He lifted his chin and stared at me. “Ah…” He strolled away from the window, toward the fire. “You represent Simone D’Arcy.” He looked down at his shoes, chewing his lip.
I was mad, tired, and exhausted, and I was ready to grab his head and stick it in the fire just to motivate him. But something—some kind of instinct—told me to hear him out.
“This is a foolish move. She doesn’t need to go to these extremes.”
“Really?” I loaded the question with heavy irony.
He gave a small shrug. “All we want is to negotiate, for her to stop being quite so intransigent. After all, the man has a moral claim on his wife’s estate.”
I nodded. “And then there are all the deals he’s done, on the strength of the property he was due to inherit, right?”
“I couldn’t comment on that, Mr…”
I shook my head. “Wrong, you can comment, but you don’t want to. And you know how it is, Wilberforce, sometimes in life, you just make a bad choice. This is one of those times.”
I stepped up and back-handed him across the face. He dropped his glass, staggered back and fell on a bearskin rug. I kept the Sig trained on him all the way.
“I told you, Wilberforce, as long as you are part of the solution, we’re OK. But as soon as you become part of the problem, then things start to turn sour. Now, I am going to ask you again, was Carmichael making business deals on the strength of the property he would inherit from Sarah?”
He wiped the blood from his lip and levered himself up into a sitting position.
“That was unnecessary. No, not exactly. They were very close as a couple. I advised them on all their legal matters. They were a unit. They were both the sole beneficiaries of each other’s wills. She was aware of all his property deals, and gave them her blessing.”
“What about the property along the Sara Bayou?”
He got to his feet. “What about it?”
“Did she agree to develop that land?”
“Of course.”
“When? And how?”
“Early in the summer. We had dinner here. We all discussed it.”
“I want to see the documents—agreements, contracts, negotiations, emails, letters—everything!”
“They are not here. They are at my office in Baton Rouge…”
“Left or right?”
He frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Which kneecap do you want to lose first, the left one or the right one?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
I rammed him in the solar plexus with the muzzle of the Sig and winded him badly. I back-handed him again and he went down on his back. I knelt on his left arm, grabbed his hand, forced out his baby finger and rammed the muzzle of the Sig on it. He was screaming hysterically for me to stop. I shouted him down, “What do I have to do, Wilberforce, for you to take me seriously? You complacent fuck? People are dying and you tell me not to be ridiculous?”
I pulled the trigger, there was a loud, flat bang, and his finger skipped across the floor. His scream was shrill and hysterical. I stood and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, dragged him to his feet and hauled him toward the fire. He was kicking and slapping at my arms, sobbing like a child.
“No! No! No!”
I stopped and shoved my face into his. “Have you understood me?”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!”
“Now! Get me the documents or I will blow your left kneecap off.”
“OK, OK, OK…”
>
He could barely walk, and his trousers were soaked from where he had pissed himself. I didn’t like doing what I had done, but he was too cool and too complacent and we would have wasted hours, and in that time Simone, Hirschfield, and Bat could have been killed—even Carmichael, if my reading of the situation was wrong. He needed to know I was committed. Now he knew.
He led me across the parquet floor to a door at the back of the room. His hands were trembling so bad he couldn’t open it. I opened it for him and shoved him through. I stepped in after him and switched on the lights. Like the rest of the house, it was spacious, with a strange mix of clinical, minimalist lines and pockets of organic shape where the outside seemed to come inside.
He had a black, glass desk and a large, black leather chair. There were low, blond wood bookcases and modern paintings on the walls. He walked unsteadily to the painting behind his chair and lifted it down.
He couldn’t look at me. “I… I can’t remember…”
“You’re something, Wilberforce. Let me tell you how this works. If I have to go back to my car and get some C4, I will cripple you and leave you in the room while it detonates. How far do we have to go before you get with the program?”
“I’m in shock…”
“Open it. It will come to you. I guarantee it.”
He reached up, hesitated a moment, then turned the knobs and the door clicked and swung open. I pushed him gently aside. There was a stack of files inside the safe. I pulled them out and went through them. One of them was labeled ‘Carmichael’.
I looked Wilberforce in the face. “Is there anything else I need so I can get a complete picture of Carmichael’s deals?”
He shook his head. “No, everything you need is there.” He dropped into his black leather chair and frowned at me, shaking his head. His skin was pasty. He was shivering and sweating with the shock. “You have to understand, you can’t get away with this…”