Lake Charles

by Ed Lynskey

  “Tell me why four New York punks are even in Tennessee,” said Gil.

  “Just off on a long joyride,” replied Earl. “That’s the song they sang at their police grilling. The state boys collared the last punk in the hot Caddy. He’d run out of money, gas, and luck.”

  Gil’s face buckled in its anger. “The shotgun-toting granny is a liar. She thinks she’s so clever. Somebody sure as shit gave her a hand.”

  “Boss, don’t let it pop a blood vessel. Who gives two farts? The local yokels can handle that part of investigation.”

  I watched Gil jerk his shoulders. “True enough. We just work the federal side. All right, let’s bag it for the night.”

  “Holiday Inn, tally ho and none too soon.”

  The car’s doors thudded shut, and the V-8 engine growled to life. The sharp-dressed agents skidded broadside, squealing to grip the two-laner and then lit out in the direction of Yellow Snake. Spidering down from the rock wall allowed us to sit down and rest at its base. The pellets of sweat dribbled off my forehead. The feeling returned and eased my finger cramps. Mr. Kuzawa got my capsule summary of what I’d overheard, finishing with, “Now the DEA narcs are in our pants.”

  “No, we’re just a useful conduit. Their tentacles are out for the local pot growers. Just the major operations get them juiced up.”

  “Major operations?”

  “It stands to reason. We learned Sizemore raises tons of pot at Lake Charles, and now the Feds have caught wind of it.”

  An inspiration excited me. “That’s how we get rid of this hot potato. See?”

  “Not really, Brendan.”

  “We tie up what we have on Sizemore and dump it on the DEA.”

  “But no solid evidence pins the dope on Sizemore. Besides our goosing the DEA might jeopardize Edna’s safety if he feels the heat and decides to end it all in a messy hurry.”

  That made sense. We needed to drum up the proof. Mr. Kuzawa drew out a flashlight from his pocket and knelt down at my cab truck. He aimed the beam’s oval on the front bumper and, leaning, groped his hand underneath it to get at something.

  “I verified this electronic tracking gizmo belongs to our pals.”

  Taken aback, I studied the James Bondian transmitter—no larger than a pack of Marlboros though weighing a bit heavier—Mr. Kuzawa had given me. “That’s the signal they just mentioned. Why didn’t they dog us from the wayside down to Umpire?”

  “Because while we chowed down at the wayside I deactivated the tracking gizmo. Then I flipped its beeper on before we left my place. That’s why I waited until dark to return to Yellow Snake, and how they keyed on us again. But I had to be double sure. They lost the signal after we deployed behind this big rock.” Mr. Kuzawa flipped off the tracking gizmo. “We’ll sign on again, but we’ll do it when it suits us the best.”

  “When did they plant it on my bumper?”

  “Probably while we were inside the library.”

  “What tipped you off?”

  “Their surveillance was too slick for Sizemore’s crew. Once a Fed myself, I played a hunch and found it.”

  “How long were you a Fed?” I asked.

  He grew curt. “We’ll just leave it at a few years.”

  I quit my nosy questions. Mr. Kuzawa told me he thought Sizemore had returned to the mansion and making another nighttime raid was too risky. So we elected to bivouac in my truck cab parked behind the rock column. Our seats were comfortable enough. Soon I heard his heavy breaths, but having rested earlier, I didn’t feel sleepy and stayed vigilant. Herzog’s game pouch jabbed me in the hip. I disabled the handheld radio and tossed it from the window. Bored, I let my imagination tune in to Valdez’s pulsing nightlife. The soft neon to the ad signs glowed as a beacon to the lost sons. I’d better look hard and fast, or else I’d miss seeing it.

  I tagged along with a gang of pipeline roughnecks out barhopping. With the long necks in their grasps, they took swigs between belting out cheers. They were a happy-go-lucky bunch, and you couldn’t help but want to join their off-hours revelry. Shivering in the dark, cold cab, I started to feel bereft and hollow on the inside. The high times in Valdez stood a world away from Lake Charles, and I’d never get there by sitting on my thumbs as I was now.

  Mr. Kuzawa moaned in his sleep. He garbled something about “Chosin,” “blood,” and “death.”

  I just let him be.

  * * *

  At daybreak, my cab truck accelerated back to Sizemore’s main estate. My leg and arm muscles were sore from our rock climbing the night before, but my sidelong glance took in a visual treat. Out Mr. Kuzawa’s window, the cerise red streaks painted Wednesday’s breathtaking sunrise on the indigo horizon.

  We traversed Yellow Snake through its residential streets and parking lot cut throughs. My radar didn’t key on any sheriff’s deputy or government sedans. A geezer pushed a power mower trimming between the geometric-shaped hollies in his bonsai garden. A lady who resembled a youthful Dinah Shore plucked her newspaper bundle from its toss into an azalea bed. Beyond the town limits was the driveway entrance to the Arbogast farmhouse where Alicia had cooped.

  Mr. Kuzawa tipped his chin at it. “Set a Zippo to it.”

  I nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

  “The last time we searched in Sizemore’s house, so now we’ll check in the outbuildings.”

  Soon we rode up on Ralph Sizemore’s main gate. But instead of driving by it and turning on the nearby bush road that we’d used before, Mr. Kuzawa tamped our brakes, and we slowed.

  “Rub out any rent-a-cop guard,” he said.

  “You’re kidding, I hope.”

  “I’m not ready to get my ass shot up, are you?”

  I retrieved the 12-gauge stored under the cab seat. A rustic guard hut constructed of fieldstone with a red slate roof sat at the base of the serpentine driveway. No guard waved a gun at us turning at the gate into Sizemore’s driveway. It snaked us uphill between the fenced pastures. The fields of jade green grass I saw rising and falling to the tree-clad foothills was worthy of a tourist postcard.

  Sizemore’s mansion on its own knoll supported a steep-pitched roof, and the gutters were patinated copper. Steel bars girded the angular windows, and the building had the grim charm of a prison cellblock. A bungalow sat tucked behind it under the maples, and a blue Javelin parked under their shade. No fancy car driven by Sizemore was in sight. Further on, I took in a tennis court and a below ground swimming pool, neither looking in recent use. Ashleigh had excelled more as a doper than as an athlete. Just the pothead calling the kettle black, I scoffed.

  My truck bumped off the driveway pavers and traveled over the mowed grass. More eye candy awaited us. Svelte thoroughbreds raced in the next pasture. We rolled by an outdoor ring, paddock, and stable complex, all well kept. Ashleigh Sizemore had blossomed into a nubile girl on this fairytale set where I played her venomous troll. One kiss from me and her graces went all to smash. My sight turned hazy as I dipped into a brief reverie.

  “Sorry about that, Ashleigh. It’s a knack I have.”

  “I can see you’re closing in on my actual killer.”

  “Our odds are improving all the time.”

  “Excellent. You’ve one more small matter to do in my service. It will test your courage more than anything else has so far.”

  I shook my head. “Can’t. I’m almost out of this. Did you know all along Herzog was double crossing us?”

  She laughed, no teeth. “Brendan, you’re so gullible. Friends will always fail you.”

  “Then I don’t believe I want to talk to you anymore.”

  The bite of anger jolted me back to real time. “We’ll case that first building,” I said, pointing.

  The newer sheet metal building was a machinery shed or tack room. Its dented sliding garage door faced us. As we approached it, I saw where our wheels mashed down the grass over an old set of tire tracks. There were also the imprints of horseshoes, and I keyed on a memory of spotting those left
in the sand at Lake Charles. Once out of the cab truck, Mr. Kuzawa stalked over and kicked the sliding door, making a clanging racket.

  “Locked.”

  “Can you jimmy it with a pry bar?”

  An inside doorknob clattered, and we saw a young lady, olive-skinned and possibly from India, sidle into our area of sunlight. A few years older than me, she filled out her khaki shirt and denim trousers, every bit as striking as Salem but a few inches taller. The lady moved in athletic, take-charge strides, and I enjoyed seeing the vigor in it. An ash blonde ponytail spilled from the rear of her mesh cap. Her hazel eyes harbored glints of humor despite her stern game face.

  “Mr. Bates and Mr. Henderson?” she said in a crisp tone, and I couldn’t place her clipped accent. Kennedy’s Boston, maybe. She tipped up her clipboard and examined an invoice held on it. “Are you the wrecking crew from Yellow Snake?”

  Instant fear stalled my breathing.

  “Sure, that’s us, but you’re not Mr. Sizemore,” said Mr. Kuzawa, his smile cunning.

  She’d no return smile. “Obviously. I’m Ms. Sutwala, the estate manager. Mr. Sizemore left for a jaunt on his bridle trail; however, I’m authorized to represent him.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Sutwala,” I said. That was bullshit because neither of us offered a hand to shake. She also didn’t wear a wedding ring. I’d gnawing doubts just how far we could take this mistaken identity ruse. “Do you expect Mr. Sizemore to return soon?”

  Ms. Sutwala’s demeanor turned frostier. Her hazel eyes, now without humor, pierced me. “He’ll return in a few hours, but I’m in charge of this teardown project.”

  “I didn’t doubt your authority,” I said.

  She tapped the clipboard against her thigh, her impatience sign.

  “Just outline the teardown for us,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

  “I’m gathering estimates to demolish this building.” Ms. Sutwala pointed the clipboard behind us. “Mr. Sizemore claims it’s been an eyesore.”

  “Is that right?” The thoughtful Mr. Kuzawa scratched his brambly neck. “Any preference on how to do it?”

  “You should know the best method.”

  I nodded when her hazel eyes flashed on me.

  “Poor Mr. Sizemore has had a tough time, I guess, since Ashleigh died,” said Mr. Kuzawa, anything but sympathetic.

  “He’s been a little upset, yes.”

  “Of course she was a little hellion,” said Mr. Kuzawa in a leading way.

  Ms. Sutwala’s angry lips compressed. “So what? She didn’t deserve to die as she did. Nobody does.”

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong. I recently lost my own boy.”

  “My condolences then.”

  I sought out any credible pretext for entering the building Sizemore was in a big sweat to get rid of.

  “We’ll duck in to check the structural part,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

  Ms. Sutwala spaced her chukkas apart and knitted her brows into an expressive hash. “Why? It’s just your basic wooden beams.”

  “Okay but what’s got you so damn sore?” asked Mr. Kuzawa.

  “Just go do your estimate and turn it in.”

  “Cool by us.” My elbow nudged Mr. Kuzawa, our exit cue. We returned to the cab truck and glided over the pasture to the driveway.

  “Christ, what pissed her off?” asked Mr. Kuzawa.

  “She didn’t appreciate your hellion crack.”

  “Did I say anything not true of Ashleigh Sizemore?”

  “No, but you came on too blunt.”

  “Is Ms. Sutwala covering for Sizemore’s pot farm?”

  “My gut says no.”

  “Then what’s hiding inside that damn shed?”

  “My hope is it’s what leads us to Edna.”

  “The right time has come to stir the pot and meet our DEA pals.”

  My cab truck wended down Sizemore’s driveway and shot out the main gate. As we improved speed on the state road, a silver-and-white panel truck slowed crawling by us. My glance over saw “HENDERSON & BATES, INC., PRO DEMOLITION ACES” painted on its flank.

  “Uh, you might want to step on it,” I told Mr. Kuzawa.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  They’d corralled us after Mr. Kuzawa juiced their electronic tracking gizmo planted on my truck bumper. The four of us conspired at the rear booth in the pancake diner on Yellow Snake’s main stem. The white guy actually was Gil, and as he talked, the darker-skinned, shorter Earl kept his bladed eyes on us. Our coffee mugs sat empty, but the DEA’s menacing scowls had frightened off our server. Mr. Kuzawa looked cool. He was the pro, not me, at handling this. I just sat back, trying not to look too scared or clueless.

  “Mr. Kuzawa, we’ve assembled quite the dossier on you,” said Gil. “Even if a loose cannon, you became a legend in the foreign intelligence arena. Assignments completed in the Prague, Bogotá, Paris, México City . . .”

  “You didn’t get the latest dope.” Mr. Kuzawa folded his arms on his chest. “Nowadays I cut timber. Period.”

  “Why did you go to Sizemore’s estate?” asked Earl.

  Armpit sweat eked a slime trail down my ribcage. My pulse went a little haywire as my lower back muscles balled up. I had to chip in something intelligent. “We heard he’s hiring, and our bank account is in the red.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Gil, his manner skeptical. “Checking bank accounts is easy enough.”

  “Not without the appropriate warrant.” Mr. Kuzawa unfolded his arms. “Are we finished here?”

  I knew our fishing expedition was anything but finished.

  “Not by a long shot, Kuzawa, so just cool your heels,” said Earl. “Henderson and Bates in town have the same commercial name you gave the farm manager.”

  “Do they? Son of a bitch. Well, she insisted on calling us that.”

  “You didn’t correct her misrepresentation.”

  Mr. Kuzawa jutted out his lower lip. “So what? How hard is it to flatten a large shed? We’re strapped for cash and can use the work.”

  I chewed over how they knew we’d talked to Ms. Sutwala until they lobbed a hot potato into my lap.

  “Mr. Fishback, your trial is bearing down fast.” Gil used an officious smile. How many men had he killed in his line of work? Had he anguished over it? Since back in May, I had. He went on. “What’s the criminal charge? Murder one, if I recall it correctly. That’s a big hurdle to clear.”

  “A mighty big hurdle,” said Earl.

  “You’d be a bright lad to tell us the whole truth.” Gil paused. “We’ll highlight your cooperation in our official report. That’d be a real feather in your cap.”

  I imagined a drop of ice-cold sweat beading on the tip of my nose. The DEA knew too damn much about us. Gil hadn’t brought up Herzog’s stiff or the others dead at Lake Charles. Maybe that zinger was coming next. Faking my nonchalance, I lifted my shoulders with boyish charm. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Your attorney has gone AWOL. Mr. Herzog’s secretary, a Ms. Salem Rojos, hasn’t seen him since Friday afternoon.” Gil’s hard eyes speared me. “Care to comment?”

  “I haven’t seen Herzog in a few days,” I replied, my airway shrinking to the size of a drinking straw.

  “That’s it. We’ve got no more comments,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

  Now angry, Gil tapped an index finger on the laminated tabletop. “You’re two cool cats sitting there, aren’t you? Well, listen up, cool cats. We have your cat nuts in a pair of vise grips. We sure do. Fraud and trespassing charges are possible, not to mention Fishback’s flagrant violation of his bail bond. Be more forthcoming, or we’ll clamp down.”

  Leaning forward, Earl grimaced at me for effect. “Ouch, man, ouch.”

  Yawning, Mr. Kuzawa wasn’t daunted. He’d been entrenched on the outpost line at the Chosin Reservoir the nights when the bugles gave the signal. Seven divisions of the Chinese Nationals assailed their foxholes. The Reds assaulted in wave after wave like a tsunami pounded away at the beach. I doubted if Gil or Earl had
ever fended off such lopsided odds. Taking confidence in that, I let Mr. Kuzawa do the talking.

  His languid eyes drifted over to our DEA interrogators, then narrowed into beady lasers. “You tailed us down from Yellow Snake.”

  My heart rate juiced up. Had they seen Herzog riding in the bed of my cab truck before we turned at the wayside? Then did they see us leave without Herzog?

  “Affirmative. You were moving the pregnant gal,” said Earl.

  “We’ve got better things to do, so we pulled off,” said Gil.

  “Bullshit. I muted your electronic gizmo before we left the wayside, and you lost us,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

  “You’re mistaken. We never use those,” said Gil.

  Earl nodded behind his banner of blue cigarette smoke. “Right. That’s strictly TV fare.”

  “You’ve run your surveillance on Sizemore since May,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

  The 10-watt light bulb flickered on in my head. The wine-colored sedan I’d seen parked in the Chewink Motel’s lot when I called the sheriff from the pay phone hadn’t been Sizemore. No, Gil and Earl had been spying on Ashleigh and me. We’d heard their engine crank up and leave as we sprawled on the bed watching TV. They must’ve returned later to check on us again. After I returned to our room from using the phone, they deduced that only teenage lust kept us entertained and left for good.

  “You followed our Jaguar to the motel and then you left. I heard your car engine start. Later you returned to give us another look. When I went out to use the pay phone, I saw you in the lot. You got bored and split again.”

  “How about it, Gil?” said Mr. Kuzawa. “Does the boy tell it straight? Were you playing cat-and-mouse with them that night?”

  “I’ll only admit our investigation reached an impasse.”

  “Too bad. You should’ve stuck around. The boy was reporting a murder. Ashleigh Sizemore had OD’d in their bed.”

  “I’ll only admit our investigation reached an impasse.”

  “Of course murder doesn’t fall in your bailiwick. Narcotics are your all, and Sizemore is your big fish, huh?”

  “I’ll only admit our investigation reached an impasse.”