by David Lyons
“That’s a pity,” Boucher said. “New Orleans and the French Quarter have a long tradition with the game that’s been washed away with time and floodwaters. It’s really a—”
“Jock, it’s Sunday morning, and I had a late evening. I took the lady home, but if she were here with me right now and you called with such a ridiculous question at this time of a new day, my tone of voice would be something different from the slightly aggravated one you hear now.”
“How soon can you meet me? We have to talk.”
“At my Sunday pace, probably in about an hour. Where?”
Boucher gave the address of a restaurant on Decatur with an outdoor seating area. It was fine weather for alfresco.
It had been almost four in the morning, with light rain still falling, when he left the Dumont residence. He’d driven home, and though his head was swimming when he went to bed, he had fallen asleep immediately, waking up a few hours later to finish the sentence that was in his mind when he had dozed off. He fixed coffee and sat in his courtyard. There was a clarity to his thoughts that was surprising, considering his lack of sleep. Physically, he felt better, feeling hardly any pain when he massaged his ribs. In the cool early-morning stillness, he had thought of chess, and the men he’d been with the previous night. They didn’t make up a complement, but each man’s moves could be compared with several of the game’s principal pieces. One thing for sure—the pieces were on the move, with the game’s primary initial objective easy to ascertain. They were moving to control the center of the board. But there the analogy faded. What was the board? Where was its center?
• • •
Fitch arrived at the restaurant wearing a white cotton shirt unbuttoned, a houndstooth sport coat, black slacks, and a straw fedora with black band. His shoes were polished. His aftershave was probably something of a drugstore variety. Boucher stared at the outfit. Fitch waved away his unspoken comment.
“I’m having lunch with Helen,” he said. “So whatever your business is, get it over with. Meter’s running.”
“Sit down,” Boucher said, smiling. “Relax and enjoy. Man, I love the Quarter in the morning after an early-spring rainfall.”
“Good. Write a song about it. What do you want?”
Not to be rushed, Boucher ordered coffee and croissants and waited for them to be served. When the waiter left after bringing them their order, Fitch tapped his foot loudly, drummed his fingers on the table, and made an exaggerated gesture of looking at his watch.
Boucher leaned forward and motioned for Fitch to do the same. “They’re loading the vessel and shipping out tonight,” he whispered.
“How do you know?”
“They told me.” Boucher recounted his overheard conversation. “I’m going to charter a certain sport fishing boat and follow it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Fitch, we can’t touch these guys, you know that. But when they offload their cargo, there’ll be a large quantity of weapons that will kill innocent men, women, and children. How long do you think it will be before Americans get caught in that bloody cross fire? Hell, it’s already happening. El Paso’s city hall is riddled with bullets fired from across the river in Juárez.”
Fitch sighed. “Before I met you, my life was normal—nothing more than murders, armed robbery, prostitution, and small-time drug busts. Now you’ve got me chasing international gunrunners and drug lords who have more power than most heads of state. I really should choose my friends more carefully.”
“But that’s just it. We don’t know who we’re chasing. Benetton’s mentioning a weapons shipment is the first real piece of evidence we have, but who is Dumont’s buyer? A drug lord? That can’t be. One of them killed his son. Is he backing a counterinsurgency group planning to take on the cartels? Before I take this any higher, I have to know more or I’ll look like a fool. I’ll pick you up tonight at nine.”
“No, you won’t. I don’t want your tags spotted. I’ll get something with plates that can’t be traced. Now”—he stood up—“I’ve got a date. I suggest you call that girlfriend of yours and see if she remembers you.”
“I spoke with her this morning,” Boucher said. “I told her I’m going to be away for a few days, but when I get back, I want her to plan on a long visit.”
“If you make it back alive,” Fitch said. He gave a mock salute, turned, and walked away.
Boucher ordered a full breakfast of eggs Benedict, even treating himself to a mimosa. He ate slowly, watching a jazz quartet set up for the Sunday-brunch crowd, then catching the first set. It was, he told himself, a time to savor. When the band took a break, he called Fred Arcineaux.
“I want to charter your boat,” he said. “I’m driving over to talk to you about it.”
• • •
He enjoyed the coastal sojourn, windows down and radio up. The jazz station’s DJ was featuring a pantheon of jazz guitar greats: Django Reinhardt and his Gypsy jazz; Charlie Christian, who took the guitar from the big bands’ rhythm sections to center stage as a featured solo instrument; Les Paul’s wizardry; and Wes Montgomery, the father of smooth jazz. It was music that could turn any drive into a magic carpet ride. There was a fullness to the air that rushed into the cab of the pickup, the product of the great river’s confluence with the saline gulf waters, the meeting of earth and sea creating a transitional life force that altered the lower atmosphere inhaled by all living things. During the course of his brief trip, for a few precious moments of the God-given day, he was able to force from his mind all thoughts of the evil that men do.
Again he spotted Arcineaux on the flybridge; no surprise. It was like a penthouse up there, its elevation affording the best view even in port. The skipper waved him aboard, and Boucher climbed up to the catbird seat. The boat’s slip afforded a view over the stern, a straight shot of open water between two piers where smaller pleasure craft were moored. The proud owner had bought a captain’s hat, a definite improvement over his previous headgear, and wore a Hawaiian-style shirt, Bermuda shorts, and the same deck shoes, as if dressing for summer would hasten the season’s arrival.
“Welcome aboard, Judge. What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to charter your boat, Fred.”
“Day trip?”
“No.”
“Where we going?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re going to chase Dumont’s ship, right?” he asked.
Boucher nodded, then asked, “You in?”
“Told you before that I wanted to help. Yeah, I’m in. Wish I didn’t have to charge you, but—”
“No. I want to pay your going rate. Also, I need to know—is this vessel insured?”
“To hell and back,” Arcineaux said. “Is Detective Fitch coming along?”
“No. He’ll need to stay behind.”
Arcineaux smiled. “He can write the sea chanteys they’ll sing about us when we’re gone, right?”
“Something like that,” Boucher said.
“When do you want to go?”
“Tonight. Fitch and I will do surveillance at Houma. When Dumont’s boat is loaded and ready to ship out, I want to follow him. Where can we meet?”
“We’ll meet at Dulac. I’ll dock at a slip just off the canal. He has to pass us, so when you see him get under way, hightail it to our rendezvous.”
“Is it possible you might lose him on the open sea?”
“Impossible. I’ll show you why. Let’s go down to the bridge,” Arcineaux said, and they went below. “This is the Interphase twin scanning sonar.” He pointed to the equipment. “This is the weather PC, driven by XM satellite. This, the Icom VHF radio. Here’s the Northstar plotter/depth/radar. This is the autopilot. This, the Furuno GPS with computer interface. That enough for you?”
“Now, don’t be offended when I ask this, but you just bought this boat. Do you know how to use all this gear?”
“Don’t worry. I got all the manuals,” Arcineaux said with a smile.
They spent another half hour together, the conversation taking a decidedly lighter tone. Arcineaux lifted his beer to offer a toast, saying, “You’re nervous. Don’t be. Everything is gonna be fine.”
“I just wish I knew more about what they’re doing.”
“That’s the reason for our little trip, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Boucher said with a sigh. “But there’s something else bothering me.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ve got to tell my assistant I’m taking off.”
“So what? You’re the boss.”
“You don’t know my assistant.”
• • •
Boucher drove home and spent the remainder of the day sitting in his courtyard, listening to the ambient noise of the neighborhood. He stared at his stone statue of Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, as if engaged in telepathic communication. He tried to plan for the coming evening but knew they would be reacting to whatever came up, and he trusted Fitch’s experience with surveillance techniques. He asked himself whether he would—or could—break the law in an effort to combat an illegal activity, and he pondered, not for the first time in his career, the absurdity of legal compliance when it aided only the criminal. Would he commit trespass, maybe breaking and entering? Maybe, he decided. Maybe. Perhaps Dickens was right when he said, “The law is an ass.” At times it seemed just so.
CHAPTER 23
HE WAS SEATED AT the campaign desk when Fitch pulled up outside. The sun had disappeared over an hour ago, but Boucher had no idea how dark the night was, since the lights of the Quarter provided their own illumination. He rose, exited his house, and locked up. Even in the dark, he could see that the car Fitch was driving was a wreck, and though no interior lights came on when he got in, he knew that the passenger compartment was no better.
“Where’d you get this clunker?” he asked.
“Automobile surveillance is probably the least sophisticated and the least effective of all police methods,” Fitch said as he drove. “But we can’t give it up. At least old wrecks attract less attention. A late-model unmarked car is not the way to go. I thought of getting a van, and painting some oil field service company’s logo on it, but there wasn’t enough time, and I really don’t know where we’re going to do our stakeout.”
“So we’re not going to try to get inside the warehouse?”
“I gave that some thought,” Fitch said, “but not much. First, we don’t know where it is. Second, that’s trespassing. And third—no small detail to me—we might get our asses shot. There is one location we do know, so we’re going to scope it out first.”
“The other side of the canal. What good will that do us?”
“Not sure. We’ll have to get a better angle than before. So we’ll need to hunt up a spot nearby. Wish you were a girl.”
“Why?”
“A man and a woman don’t get noticed as much in a parked car. Two men, that’s another story. Me and you? In the bayou? I don’t think so.”
“Okay. We find a spot where we have a line of sight to the loading. Again, what good will that do us?”
“The answer’s in the backseat.”
Boucher looked behind. A black leather case rested on the seat.
“State of the art,” Fitch said. “Thermal digital cam: takes video in complete darkness. Got a second ultra-low-light camera with a full range of high-speed telephoto lenses that have excellent target recognition and identification capability. We’ll be able to see the sweat on their noses.”
There was silence, then Fitch chuckled. “You’re disappointed, aren’t you? You really wanted to do a commando number, sneak into the goddamned warehouse. Let me ask you something—do they have counseling for federal judges? If they don’t, they should. Like for our troops. You guys bear tremendous responsibilities. When we get done with this, I think you should go talk to someone. You have a habit of acting way out of the scope of your judicial mandate.”
“I want to catch the bastards.”
“It’s not your job. Take care of the job you have. Or quit. You’re not exactly an indentured servant.”
“I think about that all the time. I could be happy just being a judge; it’s what I wanted all my life. But why does all this shit keep flowing my way? I don’t go looking for it; it finds me whether I’m on or off the bench. We went fishing and found a body in the gulf. I go for an early-evening walk near my house, and some thug pulls a gun on me. I come back from a night at the casino and get shot outside my front door. I didn’t start any of this, Fitch.”
“I know. You’re a dirtbag magnet. Forget the shrink. Go see a witch doctor. Get her to remove the spell.”
They found the spot from which they previously observed the Gulf Pride. The ship was moored. Fitch took a pair of night-vision goggles from his equipment bag. “There’s a guy on the bridge and two guards on the dock, but it’s quiet. The boat is riding high in the water, so we haven’t missed the loading. But we can’t see much from here. We’ll have to find a spot where we can look past the bow or the stern, get more of an angle.”
“That means we’ll be farther away.”
“That’s what telephoto lenses are for.” Fitch backed out of the parking area, not turning on the headlights till he was back on the secondary road. They drove slowly, under two minutes. A slight curve to the road favored them. Fitch pulled over to the side as far as practical with no shoulder. There was heavy foliage between the road and the canal.
“There’s bug spray in the glove compartment,” Fitch said.
“That’s being prepared.” Boucher took it out and sprayed himself.
“Give me a merit badge. Grab the bag. Let’s go.”
“Yes, bwana.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know.” Boucher punched him in the arm. “If I can’t joke around with you . . .”
“Yeah, who else you got? That’s kind of sad, when you think about it.”
They left the car on the side of the road and pushed their way through the brush, wading through ankle-deep muck to the water’s edge. Fitch stopped. “Hand me the night-vision goggles,” he said. He put them on and turned his head from side to side, then took them off. “The infrared camera.”
Boucher handed it to him.
“There’s something moving. It’s approaching the ship.” Fitch put the goggles back on. Several trucks pulled onto the loading dock alongside the ship. “I think we got lucky,” he whispered. “They’re using a crane, raising and lowering the cargo into the hold.”
“How is that lucky?”
“The way the trucks are parked, blocking our line of sight, we’d see next to nothing if they were hand-loading by the gangplank. Just pray that the netting is coarse enough for us to see what the cargo is.”
“It’s probably boxes.”
“Maybe the boxes will say they contain cans of carrots and peas. Maybe they’ll have Russian writing all over them, like in those movies Pip watches. We have to wait and see.”
From their vantage point, the loading process was ho-hum. Boxes. Lots of boxes. Yes, many appeared to be of a size that could hold shoulder-fired weapons. Others could have contained munitions. But no smoking gun. Until . . .
“Holy shit,” Fitch exclaimed. “Look at that.” He handed the goggles to Boucher.
“What is it?”
“I think it’s an armored personnel carrier. No box for that baby.”
They watched for another half hour. From the activity on the bridge and on deck, it was obvious the ship was being made ready to depart.
“Let’s go,” Fitch said. “Where are you meeting Arcineaux?”
“Dulac.”
They had heard only one car pass. “See?” Fitch said when they got to the car. “Nobody’s interested in an old wreck like this.” He slapped his left hand with his right. “I sure hope that mosquito repellent worked better for you than it did for me.”
It was another short drive to the small b
ayou town of Dulac.
“That armored personnel carrier pretty much seals the deal,” Fitch said, “but we’ll enhance the videos and the stills. There may be more. I think we’ve got enough to put Dumont away already, so why the boat trip?”
“What we just saw is the tip of the iceberg, that’s why. Where the weapons are going and to whom, that’s the next piece of the puzzle.”
“That’s your problem!” Fitch slapped the steering wheel. “You’ve got a damn messianic complex. There’s no problem in the world too big for you to solve personally. Nobody can do it like you. You’re no hero, Jock Boucher, you’re an egotist. Hey, don’t get pissed off at me for telling the truth. Now that we know what the problem is, we can begin to work on a cure. I’ll start. I think you chasing this gunrunning boat is about the dumbest thing I ever heard, and if I had any stroke in the right places, I’d try to get you put away for a while for your own good. Your damned ego is also why you’re about to lose that attractive, intelligent woman who thinks you hung the moon. You never consider her. You never think about what might be good for the two of you as a couple. It’s ‘I, me, my’ with you. ‘Hi, darling; call me next week. This week I’m saving the planet, but my schedule will be freed up by Tuesday. We’ll do lunch.’ ”
All this in one breath. Fitch inhaled deeply. “Hope this doesn’t end our friendship, but it had to be said.”
There was silence. A minute is a long time in total silence. Boucher finally spoke. “You’ve given me something to think about. No, it doesn’t end our friendship; quite the contrary. I’d kiss you, Fitch . . . but this is Louisiana.”
“You’re still gonna chase the boat?”
“I’m still going to chase the boat.”
They arrived at Dulac. Arcineaux was waiting for them at a gas station.
“I’m glad to see you guys. I thought this place was open all night, but they closed a half hour ago. People here don’t like strangers standing around in the dark. The ship loaded?”