"Let's go."
They had to clear three different checkpoints-double sets of heavy sliding doors controlled by guards secure in bulletproof glass boxes. It was all about security, the Cajun realized, but he believed that part of it was also psychological, reminding every convict in the place that he was under someone else's thumb.
Visitations were strictly controlled in Atlanta, with the main visitors' room patrolled by multiple guards whenever convicts were present, rigid barriers blocking any contact between inmates and their visitors. Aside from that, there were four smaller rooms, as well, where screws weren't supposed to peek or eavesdrop, and these were used for inmate conferences with lawyers and occasionally psychiatrists employed by the defense team on particularly sticky cases.
Fortier was all the more confused when Eulus Carroll led him to the block of private rooms and opened number three. With nothing in the way of explanation, Carroll opened up the door, shoved Fortier across the threshold, closed and locked the door behind him. Glancing back, the Cajun saw his keeper's face framed briefly in the door's small window, double panes of glass with wire mesh in between, before it disappeared.
His visitor was standing in the corner farthest from the door, hands in his trouser pockets, watching Armand with a crooked little smile. If Fortier had ever seen his face before, it didn't stick.
"You've gained some weight," the stranger said. "Must be that starchy prison food."
"Who the fuck are you?" demanded Fortier.
"You want to have a seat?" the stranger asked as if he hadn't heard. "Relax a little while we talk?"
"My mama told me not to talk to strangers," Fortier replied. He made no move toward either of the straight-backed wooden chairs.
"That's fair enough," the visitor replied. "I'll talk, you listen. It'll do you good."
Armand said nothing, but the stranger didn't seem to mind.
"You've got a motion for a retrial coming up in June, before the Seventh Circuit. Some new evidence, your mouthpiece says. Right now, you look to have a fifty-fifty chance of winning that round."
"I feel lucky," Armand told him, never able to resist a timely gloat.
"That wouldn't be because you're weeding out the prosecution witnesses who sent you up, now, would it?"
"You must be an idjit, come in here and ask me that."
"You're right," the stranger said. "There's no point asking questions when we both know what the answers are."
The Cajun felt like telling him that what he knew and what the state could prove were very different things, but he decided not to push his luck. The room was more than likely wired, with tape recorders rolling. This wasn't a privileged conversation, and he didn't want to push his luck.
"You've killed nine people that I know of in the past two months," the stranger said.
"I been right here," said Fortier. "I'm sure the warden will be pleased to verify that fact."
"That's nine plus half a dozen Gypsies who were killed last night."
Armand allowed himself a puzzled frown at that one. For the first time since the stranger started talking, Fortier had drawn a blank. He knew nothing of dead Gypsies, nor was he especially concerned.
"Oh, wait," the stranger said. "You didn't know about the Gypsies, did you? My guess is that Leon was working on his own."
The name set Armand's scalp to prickling, but he couldn't scratch it, even if he had been willing to display surprise-which he was not.
"Who's Leon?" he inquired, hoping he sounded calmer than he felt.
The stranger grinned, a predatory flash of strong white teeth. "You haven't started going senile, have you, Armand? Hey, I know it happens, but you're young yet. Got your whole life still in front of you, if you call this living."
Fortier ignored the taunt and shook his head, in case they had a camera running, in addition to the audio. "This Leon don't mean shit to me," he said. "Don't know him. Don't know anything about no Gypsies."
"I believe you," said the stranger. "Well, the last part, anyway. See, how I figure it, Leon found out one of the Gypsies had a line on him, so he decided what the hell? He didn't know which one it was, so why not take 'em all? Of course, he missed a few. The one he wanted, in particular. Tough luck that sheriff's squad car passing on routine patrol."
Another troop of phantom ants swarmed over Armand's scalp and down his back. He ground his teeth, felt tremors starting in his knees and willed them to be gone.
"You got this guy, how come you come and bother me?"
"Did I say that?" The stranger frowned. "I don't think so. No, see, your wild man got away."
"Ain't none of mine," the Cajun said. Relief coursed through his veins, reviving him as fresh air does a drowning man.
"Or should I say your loup-garou?"
It hit him like a slap across the face, but Armand didn't flinch. At least, he didn't think he had. "You're a crazy fool," he said, and forced a bark of nervous laughter. "Believing old wives' tales like that. You got some garlic in your pocket?"
"That's for vampires," said the stranger. "Trust me. "
"Shee-it. I wouldn't know."
"About the loup-garou? That's strange, you know, because I had a talk with several of your men last night, and they were very helpful."
"Bullshit." It was coming at him much too quickly now. Armand could think of nothing else to say.
"You know Etienne DuBois? Friends call him Ham? I grant you, he's a little on the porky side, but hey, that gives you one more thing in common."
"I don't know no Etienne What's-his-face," Armand replied.
"That's weird, because he sure as hell knows you. In case you're wondering, he gave me Leon's name. Your other four gorillas helped fill in the blanks."
"Bullshit." With less conviction this time. "Ham, gorillas, loup-garou. Sound like you talkin' about some kinda zoo."
"Hey, that's not bad." The stranger grinned. "Too bad for you, these apes could talk. Did you see Congo, by the way? They weren't quite that advanced but they came up with the answers I needed."
The Cajun's mind was reeling; he had no small difficulty keeping the reaction from his face. He knew the pig DuBois, of course. As for the others, if he found out any of his men had spoken to this stranger, any stranger, he would see them dead before the week was out.
"I don't know what you want with me," he said at last. It sounded lame, but he could think of nothing else to say without tipping his hand, in some way admitting guilty knowledge of the crimes this stranger was discussing.
"That's okay," the stranger said. "Mostly, the reason why I'm here is to remind you that there's different kinds of justice, see? Sometimes the system works all right, but other times it gets clogged like a drain, and little bits of crud start floating to the top. See what I'm saying?"
"Can't say that I do."
"Okay, let's put it this way. I'm the plumber. When the drain backs up, I have to ream it out. I don't involve the courts, see what I'm saying?"
"That supposed to be a threat?"
The stranger smiled, stepped forward, reached down with his right hand for a corner of the wooden table. With his thumb and forefinger, he pinched the inch-thick oak and gave a twist, as if it were nothing, and a jagged piece of wood snapped right off in his hand. It left a scalloped wound perhaps two inches wide, as if the father of all termites had been gnawing on the table.
"Call it food for thought," the stranger said, as he advanced and slipped the piece of wood into Fortier's hand. That said, he brushed past the Cajun godfather and rapped his knuckles on the metal door.
"We're done in here," he told the guard outside. Armand Fortier was trembling in his chains when Eulus Carroll came to fetch him back, and he couldn't have said if it was fear or rage. Perhaps some combination of the two.
"Let's go, shithead," the black man ordered.
"Not so fast," said Fortier. "I need to use the telephone."
A PHONE CALL from the joint could only be bad news. First thing, the convicts always
had to call collect, since none of them had calling cards inside, and that meant money out of pocket if you took the call. Worse yet, as soon as Bettencourt found out it was Atlanta calling, then he knew it had to be Armand, and Armand never simply called to pass the time of day, much less to share glad tidings. He called to give instructions or to bitch and moan, more often all of the above, the orders springing typically from some complaint that had occurred to him while he was sitting on his ass and killing time.
Still, turning down the call wasn't an option. Bettencourt's houseman was under orders to accept the charges, and he found Merle in the playroom, working on a solitary game of nine ball.
"Boss's on the phone," he said, and wandered off to God knew where.
Merle felt like yelling after him that he was the boss, but it would have been a waste of breath, aside from downright dangerous. Instead, he made a beeline for the nearest telephone and lifted the receiver. "Hey, Armand."
"Hey, Merle."
"Is this line like, you know, safe?"
"How should I know?" Armand snapped at him. "I'm callin' from the damn joint."
"Oh, yeah. What's up?"
"What's up is I just had a visitor," the Cajun godfather replied.
"Who is that?"
"I didn't catch his name, all right?"
That seemed a little odd to Merle, a total stranger showing up to visit at the federal pen and he forgets to give his name, but Bettencourt suspected that wasn't the problem Fortier had called up to discuss. "So, what'd he want?"
"Came by to tell me he been talkin' to some boys down your way," Fortier replied.
"My boys." You could at least have said our boys, Merle thought, but kept it to himself. And said, "Talkin' about what?"
"This thing with Leon," Fortier replied.
"Aw, merde. "
"You see now why I'm callin'?"
"Yeah, I think so. This guy give you Leon's name?"
"Come out with it like it was nothin'," Armand said. "Made like he knew all about that other business, too."
Merle had to puzzle over that one for a moment. Other business? Finally, it came to him that Fortier was making reference to the purge of prosecution witnesses for which Leon had been retained. The knowledge made his flesh crawl uncomfortably. The way he felt right now, his mama would have said someone had walked across his grave. But how the hell could they do that, when he was still alive?
"He say what boys was talkin'?" Bettencourt inquired.
"One name he give me," Armand said. "The pig man."
Pig man. Pig man? Wait, he had it! "Yeah, okay. Who else?"
"I said one name! You got spuds in your ears?" When Merle made no reply, the Cajun godfather continued. "Another thing. Some shit about Leon and Gypsies."
"Gypsies?"
"That's what I said! You got a fuckin' parrot on your shoulder?"
Bettencourt was reaching up to check before he caught himself, "Uh-uh," he said.
"So check this out," said Fortier. "Leon and Gypsies. All I know. And take care of that other thing."
"Okay."
"You keep a lookout for this bastard, Merle, you hear me?"
"Right. "
The line went dead without so much as a goodbye, and Bettencourt returned the telephone receiver to its cradle. Jesus Christ, as if he didn't have enough problems to deal with as it was. Now one of the prosecution witnesses was still out there, and old Armand was nagging him to get the job done. He had started thinking lately that it wouldn't be so bad if Armand lost his damn appeal and had to spend a few more hundred years inside. Like anyone would miss him but his bimbos.
Bettencourt could run the show himself. God knew he had been handling the grunt work long enough, while Armand got the cream and accolades. So much for justice. Now this shit about the Gypsies, and he couldn't even find out what it was supposed to mean, because Armand was worried that the pay phone in the joint might sprout an extra pair of ears.
Leon and Gypsies. What the hell? Of course, the more he thought about it, turned it over in his mind, the more they seemed to go together. Gypsies had that spooky reputation, and old Leon, well, they didn't come much spookier than that.
Merle knew exactly what he had to do, and while he didn't like it one damn bit, there was no viable alternative.
He grabbed the telephone again, but it was dead. Now, what the-? Instantly it came to him. His houseman, who had taken Armand's call, had left the damn extension off the hook. Merle cradled the receiver, biting off an urge to slam it down with crushing force, and reached the playroom's door in three long strides.
"Arno? Arno, you idjit, where you at?"
"What, boss?" Arno emerging from the kitchen with a turkey leg in hand, grease smeared around his lips.
"Would you be kind enough to go hang up the telephone?"
"Okay."
Sweet Jesus. Now Merle had to make the call he had been dreading ever since the Feds sent Armand to Atlanta. There was no way to avoid it any longer.
He was bound to fix himself a meeting with a goddamn loup-garou.
THE ROUND-TRIP To Atlanta took four hours, not including time spent at the prison, picking up and dropping off his rental car and dawdling through the traffic-crowded streets. All things considered, it was well into midafternoon when Remo disembarked at New Orleans International Airport, west of town, and bid a sad farewell to the incessant squalling of the two brats who had occupied the seats behind him. The whole way back, he had been mulling over Fortier's reaction to the bits of information he had dropped. The Cajun boss was hanging in there, had let nothing slip from his side, but the grim expression on his face when Remo mentioned "Leon," although quickly covered by a sneer, had shown that he was stung. The mobster's brain was working overtime when Remo left him, that was obvious, and he would not allow the game to start unraveling if there was anything that he could do to bring it back on course.
Remo was counting on it.
The sooner Fortier demanded swift results of his staff, the quicker Remo would be treated to a one-on-one with his pet loup-garou.
And what would happen then?
Before he left New Orleans, Remo had inquired about the Gypsies and was told that five were dead, two others barely hanging on with life support, six others treated and released for injuries that ranged from broken bones to multiple dog bites. Survivors who were capable of talking told police a pack of wolves had burst into their camp and run amok. Of course, the only wolves known to reside within Louisiana's borders lived in zoos, and so police assumed the Gypsies were mistaken, possibly hysterical. There had been problems in the past with feral dogs-some wild-born, others cast-off pets who joined a roving pack in order to survive. They came in from the bayous now and then, attracted by the city lights and smell of food, reacting viciously if humans tried to run them off.
It was a logical description of events, one that the media could swallow and regurgitate with sidebars about leash laws and the tragedy of heartless bastards who dumped their unwanted pets without a second thought. King Ladislaw, one of the evening's battle-scarred survivors, had spent time enough with the police in several states to know that there was no point in disputing the official version of events. As soon as he was reasonably satisfied as to his daughter's short-term safety, he had packed up the remainder of his tribe and hit the road. Aurelia had her ways of keeping in touch.
When she had spoken with her father, he had told a vital bit of trivia. The attackers had witnessed her leaving. The Romany had, as well, and they assumed she was fleeing, leaving them to their fate. Until the attackers ran off after her. Then the Gypsies had understood that the loups-garous were after her specifically. She had done a brave thing leading them away from the camp, alone and unprotected. And they all agreed it would be the best thing for her to stay away for the time being.
That was when she and Remo decided it would be best if she stuck with them.
Remo was getting his own little merry band of followers. Chiun spent most of his time l
ost in his own little world of meditation or Spanish-language TV. He was being uncharacteristically aloof, and he wasn't interested in telling Remo why. This was standard behavior for Chiun, who loved to create his little mysteries and impart wisdom by letting Remo learn things for himself. Right now Chiun claimed that he was allowing Remo to immerse himself fully in the role of Reigning Master of Sinanju. As far as Remo could tell, that meant he did all the work while Chiun "meditated" in front of the Mexican soap operas. With Chiun only physically present and with his two new companions, Remo felt like the guy in some bad TV show who wakes up to find himself living with the wrong family.
But between Cuvier and Aurelia, he sure had a full bait bucket.
"The best way I can help my people," Aureiia told Remo, "is to stay with you and see these monsters finally destroyed."
Since Remo was trying to accomplish exactly that, it was hard to turn her down. Come to think of it, it would have been hard to turn her down on anything.
But he knew he couldn't guarantee her safety, because he still didn't know for sure what they were up against. Was there one loup-garau, Leon, and a pack of trained dogs? Or were there several loups-garous?
Was he-or were they-really the product of the mad genius of Judith White? Or was there something different, something less explicable?
Remo frankly didn't have a clue what he was up against, except that Armand Fortier and company were at the root of it, their blood-stained Cajun fingers pulling strings behind the scenes.
With that in mind, he had decided on a visit to Atlanta, no real plan in mind except to meet the Cajun godfather in person, try to shake him up and crank his paranoia up an octave with the news that members of his home team in New Orleans had begun to crack.
Aside from Ham DuBois, in fact, it wasn't strictly true. The three gorillas in the cemetery would have talked, he was convinced, but they were simple button men, the kind of bottom feeders who digested rumors from the street and spit them back in garbled form. They would admit to serving Armand Fortier and "knew" he had a loup-garou on call for "special jobs," but anything beyond that point was garbled nonsense. Remo exhausted their meager store of intelligence and left them there, fresh customers for the New Orleans boneyard.
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