“Jesus, Joseph, and fucking Mary. Angelique is… Who else?” He turned on Pickup with a renewed vengeance.
You.” He dropped his eyes and his voice. “Me.”
Batiste looked at Pickup like he should indeed get ready for a firing squad, or worse, when the crisis was over.
“I get why you took my phone,” Batiste said quietly. “Know your heart was in the right place, but do you understand why you shouldn’t have done it.”
“Yeah.” Pickup hung his head, feeling like a kid called on the carpet.
“It’s not just that I’m a grown man. I’m your prez. If you ever take a choice away from me again, there’ll be the devil to pay. Are we clear?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re gonna forget what you saw. And you’re never gonna speak about it again to anybody.”
Pickup looked up. “Didn’t watch the whole thing, Just. I swear. Soon as I saw what it was, I stopped it.”
Batiste nodded slightly. “You better hope Rou never finds it out or you’re gonna be makin’ your way through life two eyes short of sight.” Pickup’s lips parted. “No. I’m not tellin’. But you will never reveal to anyone that you saw any part of that or I’ll gut you myself. That goes triple for Angelique.”
Pickup shook his head vigorously. “No. ‘Course not.”
“Okay. I believe we understand each other. Now go tell that outsider to meet me in the office.”
Batiste was in the chair behind his desk when Dev knocked on the door jamb. He looked up and told Dev, “Close the door and take a chair.”
“There’s been a development. We’ve had communication from Manatee. They’ve disrespected Angelique in heinous ways.” Batiste appreciated the fact that Dev looked visibly distressed by that. It meant that he hadn’t seen the video. It also meant he cared what happened to Angel. “That’s all the detail you need to know about that. Two reasons I’ve got you in here. First, you handled the original negotiation and Manatee is used to dealin’ with you now. Second, I’m hangin’ on to my sanity by a thread here. Don’t want my club to know it, but it’s true. Thing has the potential to eat me alive.”
Dev nodded slowly and solemnly. He liked Batiste whether he wanted to or not. “What can I do?”
“See this through to the end. You’re up to speed on the goal. I believe you can get us there. I’m gonna be the one who goes in for Angelique. So far as the rest…” Batiste stopped dead still in mid-sentence.
“What is it?”
“Stars and Bars. Guess my brain was cloudy. Somethin’ very off. I saw a video. Except for Manatee they tried to… what do you call it? Hide-like the faces.”
“Obscure?”
“Yeah. But now I know what was strange. Those boys were rough even for bikers. They don’t look like that.”
“Like what?”
“No beards.” He ran his hand over the top of his devil-may-care hair. “What you call clean cut. Except for Manatee they were wearin’ dress shirts and those slacks…”
“Khakis.”
“Yeah. That. And golf shirts.”
Dev looked like a light was dawning. “That’s how they’ve been hiding. You take a man with facial hair, long hair, make him look like Cubicle Carl? His own wife or mother wouldn’t recognize him without ID.”
“But that would only work in…”
“A city.”
They looked at each other. “N’Orlanz,” Batiste said. “Gotta be. They been hidin’ in plain sight.”
“How does that help us?”
“Don’t help right now. But when we’re past the first thing, gettin’ Angelique outta there, we need to know we’re lookin’ for people who look like weekend riders.”
“Good point.”
“Said he’d be getting’ back with details. Haven’t heard a word.”
“You want me to call?”
“Don’t see the point in playin’ hard to get. He knows he’s got us by the short hairs and that we’re gonna deal. He’s a sadist , havin’ fun at Angelique’s expense. We need to send a message that we’re not the only ones with somethin’ to lose. We know enough about their enterprises to cause considerable trouble. If they want their income streams interrupted, maybe permanently, if they want a war with the Devils and the SSMC…”
“Now hold on.”
“Keep your pants on. Don’t have to be true to say it.” Dev relaxed a little. “The part about war with the Devils? That part’s right as rain.”
“Alright, I get the gist of where this is going. The message is end this game before it costs them more than they’re prepared to pay.”
The outsider was growing on Batiste and making him wish he had somebody like Dev in the Lafayette chapter of the Devils. There was a vacancy in the office of vice president that would be a perfect fit, but of course that was impossible.
“Yeah. That’s the signal,” Batiste confirmed. His phone was sitting on the desk. He began spinning it slowly. “Is this the right move?”
It wasn’t becoming for a president to second guess every thought. Bikers need a leader who’s decisive. But Batiste wasn’t feeling especially confident in his decision making skills. After all, if it weren’t for him being so sure he knew best, Angelique wouldn’t be in the middle of a nightmare.
Dev was sharp enough to read between the lines and know that he was being paid a compliment. He was being asked to advise the Lafayette Devils’ president in the absence of the man who should be in that chair.
“Like you said, I don’t see how it could hurt. And it might move things along.”
Batiste weighed those words carefully then pushed the phone across the desk.
Dev left the phone face up on the desk between the two of them, put the phone on speaker, and dialed the number from the day before.
“Yeah?”
It wasn’t Manatee’s voice so Dev said, “This is the banker. Put him on.”
“Don’t know if he’s available.”
“I think he’s going to want to hear what I have to say. You want to be responsible for him missing this call?”
After a slight hesitation the voice grumbled, “Hold on.”
Dev waited for a full five minutes before he heard Manatee’s voice. “You get my video, banker?”
Dev’s eyes went to Batiste with a question in them. Batiste nodded.
“Yeah. Got that. Got your demand for money. What we didn’t get was a suggestion on transfer.”
“Suggestion?” Manatee laughed. “That’s funny, banker.”
“Told you once, if it’s money you want, let’s deal. If it’s something else, that’s gonna be a whole other kind of negotiation. Doesn’t seem like you’re very serious about the money. Seems like you’re more into games at the expense of innocents. Maybe you think you’re beyond retaliation ‘cause you got nobody who gives a rat’s dick about you. But there are things in life you do care about. So I’m gonna put it to you one more time. You want the money. Or you want games on an escalating scale with your livelihood targeted?”
“Well, listen to you. All full of threats and puffery.”
“You could look at it that way. The way I see it, you felt like you were shorted fifty over a bounty promise that had nothing to do with us, ‘cause we had no deal with you. The way I hear that, your problem was with the bounty hunter. He’s the one who made the deal.
“So here’s the score. You felt wronged to the tune of fifty. Right now we’re down twenty five for the transport vehicle, one fifty for ransom which is three times your grievance, two dead brothers, and a captive who happens to be a president’s daughter. We were willing to go this far with you because we do not want to see the woman become collateral damage. We’d rather spend our resources on business than war with you.”
Dev looked up at Batiste. Everything depended on convincing Manatee that it wasn’t already too late, that he hadn’t already gone so far that a reckoning was inevitable. Angelique’s only chance was in persuading Manatee that the Devils were a weak cl
ub who wanted peace at any price.
With Dev having spelled out the price the Devils had paid up front, most astute bargainers would have reached the conclusion that they’d passed the point of no return when they executed Devils and kidnapped Rou’s daughter. Consequences had been amassing on the horizon from the moment the two presidents of the Cajun Devils were informed of the murders and abduction. But judging by the botched way Manatee had played this, Dev didn’t think the man was bright enough to reason that out.
Dev hoped that Batiste was discerning his strategy. “You’re about to ring a bell that can’t be unrung. You want to go there? Or you want to claim your one fifty and allow us all to get on with our week?”
A slight shuffling sound preceded the result they’d hoped for.
Manatee said, “Five fifteen today.” As Dev and Batiste looked at each other they heard another sound. Dev’s chin jerked up. Batiste’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second. Enough for Dev to see that the Cajun had heard it, too. “Gonna dump the woman inside the Spotted Lizard. It’s between owners right now. So nobody’s there. If you come before five fifteen, nobody’ll be there and you’ll never see her again. You may’ve heard we have a little side business. We can get more than one fifty for pussy like hers. We’ve just decided to be nice as a club to club courtesy.
“Far as the money goes, bring it to our club in Lake Charles. You know where it is. Four of us. Four of you. Just like you said. When you get a call that the Bellefeuille bitch is alive, you hand over the money and we all go on our merry way. Agreed?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No,” Dev repeated firmly. “The Spotted Lizard is okay with us. But the money exchange ain’t gonna happen at your fucking clubhouse. Here’s what we’re willing to do. Write this down. There’s a rice farm between 1159 and 3277. Two dirt roads run through. Your people park over at the one named Davis. We’ll park at Eunice. Start walking and meet in the middle. There’s nothin’ around there for miles. Everybody involved will be on equal footing. In broad daylight.”
Manatee laughed softly. “Sounds like you don’t trust us.”
“Can’t imagine why that might be.”
“Alright. We’ll play this your way, but anything goes south. We know where to find every one of your Cajun cunts and next time we won’t be on our best behavior.”
Manatee got the last word by ending the call.
“You heard it?” Batiste said.
“Yeah. What was that?”
“Streetcar brakes. Those fuckers couldn’t clean up enough to go unnoticed on the St. Charles line in a hundred years. So they’re on the Canal Street line, which makes sense ‘cause that’s where the Spotted Lizard is.”
“You know the place?”
“Jazz club. Temporarily outta business.”
“How do you think they have access?”
Batiste shook his head. “Maybe they’ve checked it out? Seen that’s it’s an easy break and enter?”
“Does five fifteen seem like an odd time to you?”
“Struck me so. Maybe they think there’s less chance of trickery at rush time. Don’t know if it’s important. But we need to update Brant.” Batiste glanced at his phone. “We’ve got seven hours. It’s two and a half to New Orleans. Just half an hour to the rice farm. We need help figurin’ out who should be where and what their job is.”
They put Batiste’s phone on speaker again so that they could have a virtual three way conversation. Brant had more questions than they would have guessed.
“We need to send everybody who isn’t assigned to the rice farm to New Orleans,” Brant said.
Batiste looked at Dev with a scowl. Dev shrugged as if to say he was going to do what he was told, whatever that was. The gesture made Batiste want him all the more. “Everybody?”
“There’s no battle to be fought there. He thinks he’s bought himself a permanent mischief card. Thinks he’s made a big enough statement that you’re not gonna risk a move against him. Ever. He thinks the threat of takin’ women handicaps your options.”
“That’s kind of true,” Dev said.
“Would be. If we let him get away with it. If I have my arms around this situation, the majority of the club members, probably Manatee as well, will stay in their hidey hole which is on the streetcar line close to the Spotted Lizard. Probably close enough to observe entrances and exits. That narrows things down.”
Dev looked at Batiste with eyebrows raised. “Yeah. It does.”
“All we have to do,” Brant said, “is locate the hidey hole so that Rou’s club, my club, and anybody not out at the rice farm is in place and ready for a surprise party.”
“All this depends on findin’ where they’re stayin’ between now and five?” Batiste said.
“Not as hard as you think. I got a man who’s good at faces. Gonna fly him over there. He’ll do his crazy homeless man thing. Nobody thinks much of a homeless guy walking around the block over and over and mutterin’ to himself. While he’s doin’ that he’ll have his GoPro hidden under a loose cut that looks like it came from the Salvation Army. We’ll be able to see what he’s seein’ and hear his boots-on-the-ground thoughts. Give you dimes to dollars he figures out where they are.”
“If not?”
“If not, you get Rou’s girl, and we’ll have ourselves a war. ‘Cause they’ll know we stiffed ‘em on the money. We’ll also put the four that don’t make it outta that field in their car, drive the car to their clubhouse, run it inside and set fire to the whole thing.
“Oh and we’ll be takin’ point on this. The whole bounty hunter thing was our problem. You just gave an assist. Angelique Bellefeuille was twice removed from this. Bad business her bein’ involved. Did I mention we’re cleanin’ their bikes outta that warehouse? Whatever we get for ‘em is goin’ to the Bellefeuille girl. Education fund. Start a business. Buy a new house. She ought to get somethin’ outta this.”
He paused to see if either of the younger men had a comment. When nothing was said, he added, “You decided who else is goin’ out to the farm besides Dev?”
Batiste sighed. ”No. Bein’ honest, I haven’t had a chance to see how my people react to tense situations. Been a long time since we were tested. Like that.”
“Go with your gut,” Brant said.
Batiste’s eyes flicked to Dev and away. “Not feelin’ so good about my gut right now.”
Brant knew the reason for that. It was an easy guess that Batiste was blaming himself for Angelique’s situation.
“You know, I’m probably more to blame than you. I’m the one who insisted we were in a better position to guarantee her security. I didn’t pay enough attention to transport precautions. That was my bad.” Brant paused. “You human?”
Batiste said, “Yeah. I’m human.”
“So am I. That means I fuck up sometimes, but it don’t mean there’s a better person to run things around here. It just means I’m what you call fallible. Just like you. Who you got that’s better to make the call than you?”
Batiste looked at Dev and was secretly thinking that an honest answer would be Dev Merit. But if he abdicated the decision at hand it was as good as abdicating leadership of the club permanently. Brant was right. Making mistakes sometimes didn’t disqualify him from making choices. If it did, then nobody could be in charge.
Batiste hadn’t answered, but Brant continued as if he had. “That’s right. So man the fuck up, pick your guys, and get ready to go get that woman outta there.”
When the call ended, Batiste didn’t exactly leap into action.
Reading the depth of Batiste’s self-doubt correctly, Dev said. “You just tell me to shut it if I’m out of line. But I’ve been here a bit and formed some impressions. You tell me a name, I’ll tell you whether or not I want the man you say by my side out there today.”
Dev saw both relief and gratitude on Batiste’s face.
“I’d be obliged,” Batiste said. “Rooster.”
De
v smiled. “My number one pick.”
“Lazare.”
Dev nodded. “My number two pick.”
“Army.”
Dev grinned. “Definitely. See? You got this.”
Truth was that Dev would have picked Army then Lazare, but it made little difference because the result of the exercise was that a fraction of Batiste’s self-confidence was restored. Dev had no doubt that, within a few months, he’d be back to the same smug, swaggering asshole who’d ordered him to stop talking to Angelique and go work on what they’d begun calling the can vans.
CHAPTER TEN Coup
Angie resisted returning to consciousness. Her psyche had helped her retreat from the reality of being tortured and molested. Given the choice she would prefer to just sleep peacefully hoping to make it safely to death. She moaned in her semi-conscious state as a verbal confirmation of her desire to continue sleeping, but her body was ready for her to wake.
When her eyes opened she was twisting away from invisible hands. She jerked this way and that. Then realizing that she was alone, she relaxed as much as is possible when a person is in soul-grinding pain. Swallowing was almost impossible. She tried clearing her throat and learned that she couldn’t make any sound above a whisper.
At that point she didn’t know if it was day or night, didn’t know if it had been days or weeks since her kidnapping. She looked at the rope burns on her hands. They looked bad, but she hadn’t felt them. That could only mean that there were things that hurt worse. She thought she might fill the time by trying to make a list and categorize what hurt most, but by the time she got to number three, she was confused. When this happened again and again, she gave up.
Warring with her inability to choose an injury that hurt most was hunger and thirst. She’d had nothing to eat since she’d been taken. Drinking water was one of her keeper’s sadistic games. He’d turn the nozzle to a steady stream of hose water and make her chase it around the cell, trying to get a drink. The result was that she was wet, but still thirsty.
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