by Tim Downs
“Find what you’re looking for?” the pilot shouted over.
“I think so,” Nick called back. “Stop at the next intersection.”
Fifty yards ahead both boats slowed to a stop. Nick knew that the boat shadowing him would do the same, keeping a discreet distance.
“I spotted something back there,” Nick said to the pilot. “I need to check it out. The alleys are really narrow here—I don’t think you guys can follow me. Can you wait here for me? It’ll only take a minute.”
The pilot nodded. Nick waved a thank-you and slowly pulled forward, proceeding at a snail’s pace until he was sure his shadow had begun to follow again.
Come on, you moron. Take it nice and slow, just like me.
He eased to the right around the next corner at the same trolling speed. When he was sure he was out of sight, he opened the throttle and accelerated to full speed. The propeller dug deep, churning the water into froth; the stern sank low and the bow tipped back, throwing J.T. backward off the bench and into the bottom of the boat.
“Hey!” he bellowed. “What’s the big idea?”
“Open up that equipment bag,” Nick shouted. “Get me one of those GPS units. Not the receiver, the little transmitters—the ones we used to tag the floaters, remember?”
The boy fished out one of the fist-sized units and held it up.
“That’s the one,” Nick said. “Toss it here.”
The boy lobbed it to him; Nick caught it in his left hand and flipped the power switch with his thumb. With his right hand he kept the throttle wide open, passing three houses before veering right again, rounding a corner at full speed. The boat leaned hard to the right, sending out a wake on the port side that washed a feral cat off a toolshed roof.
They were now traveling parallel to the street they were originally on, moving fast in the opposite direction. Nick stared straight ahead, visualizing the scenario in his mind like a satellite photo: He saw the position of the Guard boat; the position of the boat shadowing him and its rate of speed; the position of his own boat and its greater acceleration. He made a quick mental calculation, then jerked the tiller toward him and veered right again, steering into a narrow alley between two houses.
He shouted up to the boy. “Did you swim from Charity Hospital?”
“What?”
“Can you swim?”
“Are we goin’ swimmin’?”
“Somebody is. Hang on tight. Grab ahold of the bench—keep your fingers away from the edge of the boat.”
Thirty yards. Twenty. Nick rechecked his mental calculations. Ten yards. Five. With his left hand he grabbed the port-side gunnel and braced himself.
As if on cue, the gray-green boat appeared from the left just as Nick emerged from the alley. Nick’s boat smashed into the fiberglass hull at full speed, throwing the astonished pilot over the edge and into the water. Nick caught a glimpse of the man as he tumbled over: red hair cut in a flattop, dressed a little too nicely for search-and-rescue work—like a man who didn’t expect to get his hands dirty out here.
Nick released the throttle and pulled on the tiller, swinging his stern in alongside; he reached across and grabbed the empty boat, steadying it—and lifted the lid on the bait well.
The pilot came up sputtering. “You son of a—”
“Didn’t see you there!” Nick said. “A week ago you couldn’t find another boat out here—now we’re having traffic jams! Go figure!”
He grabbed the man’s equipment bag and upended it, dumping its contents onto the bottom of the fiberglass boat. He found a small leather folder and opened it; the identification card read:
Special Agent John Detwiler
Drug Enforcement Administration
New Orleans Field Division
From the right, the National Guard boat slowly approached. “What happened here?”
“Had a little fender bender,” Nick said. “My bad.”
“These streets are narrow,” a Guardsman said. “You came out of that alley pretty fast; better slow it down a little. We don’t need to be rescuing our own people.”
“That’s good advice,” Nick said, bracing the fiberglass boat while the dripping DEA agent hoisted himself over the opposite side. “My name is Nick Polchak—I don’t believe I caught yours.”
The man ignored him, wringing the water from his shirtfront and letting it fall in rivulets into the bottom of the boat.
“I’m with DMORT,” Nick said. “What about you?”
“Fish and Wildlife,” the man muttered, avoiding eye contact.
“No kidding,” Nick said. “I thought you guys wore uniforms.”
“This is volunteer duty,” he said.
“Yeah, I suppose it is. Hey, I know a guy in Fish and Wildlife. Johnny Zubek—you know him?”
“I doubt I’d know anybody that you’d know.”
“How about Jerry Kibbee?” Nick watched the man’s face as he said the name, but the man never flinched.
Nick held up the business card. “Your name is John Detwiler,” he said. “You work for the DEA, and you undoubtedly know a man named Frank Turlock.”
Detwiler glared at him. “So?”
“Why is the DEA following me, Mr. Detwiler? I thought we had an agreement.”
“So did we—until we got word from Charity Hospital that somebody stowed a couple of stiffs on their second floor. What was that all about, Polchak? You were supposed to locate bodies, not bring them back.”
“Nobody said I couldn’t bring them back halfway.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
“I thought so.”
“You’re a regular comedian, Polchak—that’s why I’m following you. Agent Turlock sent me out here to make sure you stick to our agreement—to make sure you leave the bodies where you find them.”
“How long have you been following me?” Nick asked.
“Not long enough,” Detwiler said. “No more bodies, Polchak. You got that?”
Nick said nothing.
Just then the National Guard pilot revved his engine and brought his boat up alongside. “Love to let you two chat,” he said, “but we’ve got work to do. If you still want to tag along, Mr. Polchak, you need to come now.”
“You’ll have to excuse my friends,” Nick said to Detwiler, keeping his eyes fixed on him. “You know how soldiers are—they get cranky when they have to carry rifles all day. I’d love to stay and talk, but you probably have to go too—you can’t sit around in wet undies all day, now can you? If I were you, I’d head for the nearest Red Cross station. E. coli, Norovirus, coliform bacteria—there’s no telling what you might have picked up from that nasty water.”
Nick pushed away from the fiberglass boat and started his engine. “Nice to meet you, Detwiler,” he said. “Now that I know who you are, I’ll keep an eye out for you.”
33
“That was way cool!” J.T. said, grinning from ear to ear.
“I thought you’d like that,” Nick said.
“Bam! Just like a torpedo!”
“Yeah—too bad we didn’t sink him.”
Nick and J.T. sat cross-legged on the St. Claude Avenue boat ramp, digging into their lunchtime MREs. J.T. had decided on the beef ravioli and tore into it with gusto. Nick had selected one at random and began to eat mechanically, oblivious to the taste of the food; his mind was somewhere else.
The sun was directly overhead now. The temperature wouldn’t peak for another few hours, but it was already over ninety degrees and humid, keeping the insects low.
J.T. slapped at the back of his neck.
“That only makes it worse,” Nick said.
“How come?”
“A mosquito has a nose like a needle. When she lands on your neck—”
“How do you know it’s a girl?”
“The girls are the ones that suck your blood—that’s a good life lesson for you. They need protein from your blood to help develop their eggs. When she sticks in the needle, she squirts in a littl
e anticoagulant first—stuff that keeps the blood from clotting. That’s the stuff that makes you itch. As she feeds, she sucks most of it out again. If you wait until she’s done eating, it won’t itch so bad later.”
“Just let ’em drink your blood?”
“Everybody has to eat,” Nick said. “Even bugs.”
Nick had followed the National Guard boat for another three hours, constantly checking behind him to see if Detwiler was still following. Nick felt confident that he no longer was; he enlisted the boy’s unerring eyes to make sure. Apparently Detwiler had heeded Nick’s suggestion and returned to shore for a change of wardrobe and a dose of antibiotics.
To err on the side of caution, Nick stuck close to the National Guard. But it was an error—it was a waste of time. The Guard were interested only in rescuing the living, and it didn’t take long to find some; then Nick had no choice but to follow along patiently while they made the long trip to drop the rescuees at the levee and then head back for more. Most of the morning was spent this way, shuttling survivors back and forth; Nick had no chance at all to search for evidence, and time was ticking away. He knew he couldn’t stay with the National Guard; he needed a new strategy, one that would give him more flexibility.
“How come you crashed into that guy?” J.T. asked.
“Just for fun.”
“Nah, c’mon.”
Nick wasn’t sure how much to tell him. “Because he was following us, J.T.”
“How come?”
“I’m not sure yet. Did you get a good look at him? Did you see his boat? Would you recognize it if you saw it again?”
“Sure, no problem.”
“Well, let me know if you do.”
“You think he’ll try to follow us again?”
“Could be. If he does, next time we’ll see him coming.”
Nick heard the sound of an approaching engine and looked up. He saw the black Zodiac boat approaching at three-quarter speed, loaded as usual with a half dozen exhausted-looking evacuees. LaTourneau was at the helm again, working alone as always. He lined up with the ramp and accelerated a little, driving the flat-bottomed inflatable up onto the pavement. He was in uniform, as he seemed to be every day.
And he was wearing a sidearm.
Nick grabbed a couple of MREs and started toward him.
“Afternoon,” he called out as he approached. “Remember me?”
“Polchak,” LaTourneau said. “How could I forget? You’re the wise guy.”
“How about some lunch? I’ve got Meals Ready to Eat right here, sometimes affectionately referred to as ‘Meals Rejected by Ethiopians’ and ‘Meals Refusing to Excrete.’ Name your poison: You can have Barbecue Pork Rib or Chicken à la King.”
“No time,” LaTourneau said. “I’ve got work to do.”
“You can’t run a boat on an empty fuel tank,” Nick said.
“I’m not a boat.”
“You’ve got me there.” Nick stepped a little closer. “Mind if I ask you a question?”
“What is it?”
“Have you stopped working since the city went under? Have you eaten one entire meal sitting down? Have you slept more than three hours in a row?”
“What are you, my mother?”
“No. I’m a compulsive workaholic just like you. I’m too dumb or too pigheaded to know when to quit. I keep driving myself until the problem’s solved or until I drop, whichever comes first. Sound familiar? I’m just like you, LaTourneau—and I’m looking for a partner.”
LaTourneau glanced at him. “You had a partner. What happened to him?”
“Long story. The point is, I need a new one—and so do you.”
LaTourneau shook his head. “I’m doing fine by myself.”
“No, you’re not—I can see it on your face. You’re not moving as fast as you used to; your concentration’s slipping; you shake yourself and can’t remember where you’ve been for the last three minutes.”
“You don’t know me, Polchak.”
“No, but I know me. We were both out here the very first morning. You and me, LaTourneau—the only two boats on the Lower Nine. We’ve been doing the same work, and we’ve been working the same hours. I figure we’re in about the same place—and we could both use a little help.”
“I don’t need any help.”
“Don’t you? Face it, the job is changing. You’re finding fewer and fewer healthy survivors, people who can climb into your boat under their own power. All that’s left now are the crippled, the sick, and the dead—can you lift them all by yourself ? I won’t slow you down, I promise. I can work just as long and hard as you can. Give it a try—just for this afternoon. Think of it as a free trial offer—no obligation and no purchase necessary. What do you say?”
LaTourneau stopped and considered; it was the longest Nick had ever seen him stand still. “Okay,” he said. “Just for this afternoon.”
“Thanks. Oh, there’s one more thing: See the boy over there? He comes with us.”
“Not a chance. This isn’t a tour boat, Polchak.”
“He’s not a tourist. This is his neighborhood—he knows the place, and he puts in a full day’s work.”
“He’s a civilian—this is a job for professionals.”
“C’mon, the place is crawling with civilian volunteers—every Bayou Billy and his fishing buddy are out in a bass boat trying to lend a hand.”
“He’s a kid.”
Nick lowered his voice a little. “Look, the kid is searching for his father—I told him I’d help him out. I promised.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“It’s a big boat. He’s a little kid. He’s got eyes like a hawk—he can spot a body floating facedown a quarter mile away. You look like you’re about my age—how’s your distance vision these days?”
LaTourneau looked at the boy and reconsidered. “One afternoon,” he said. “If the kid starts whining, he’s off the boat. If he gets hurt, it’s your responsibility.”
“Fair enough,” Nick said. “Let me grab my gear.”
“You’ve got three minutes.”
Nick turned and found J.T. standing right behind him, ready to go. “Good news,” Nick said. “We finally got a bigger boat.”
From a Chevy Suburban parked inconspicuously on the St. Claude Avenue Bridge, Detwiler kept his binoculars trained on Nick Polchak. He watched as Nick waded into the water and slid his aluminum john-boat under the concealing branches of a nearby magnolia; he watched as Nick returned a moment later with a canvas duffel slung across his shoulders; he watched as Nick and J.T. climbed into the black Zodiac inflatable and roared away.
He picked up his satellite phone and dialed.
“Turlock,” the voice on the other end said.
“It’s Detwiler,” he said. “You’re not gonna believe this.”
34
By 6:30 the sun was low on the horizon, sitting like an orange fireball on the western rim of the Lower Nine, setting off the rooftops in silhouette and filling in the streets and alleys with creeping shadow. The Zodiac was cruising west now, headed for the Surekote levee and ferrying three evacuees—one of them an elderly woman strapped to an orange backboard staring blankly into the sky. They’d found her on the second floor of a rundown “retirement community” deep in the Lower Nine, where she had been sitting in a wheelchair for almost six days in water to the knees.
She was too awkward to lift in the wheelchair and too big to fit through the window; their only alternative was to transfer her to a backboard and carry her out lying down. The skin of her legs looked like ground meat and white as a cadaver; in another day or two that’s what she would have been. She was lucky, Nick thought, she lived on the second floor—some of her friends were still downstairs. Nick took a GPS reading and made a note.
When he had told LaTourneau back at the boat ramp that healthy evacuees would soon be hard to find, it was mostly a bluff—just a way to convince LaTourneau of his need for a partner. But Nick’s prediction turned out to
be more accurate than he knew. Most of the able-bodied survivors had been spotted by now and ferried to safety; what remained were the wounded and the infirm, and each rescue required far more effort than the one before.
Bodies, on the other hand, were becoming easier to find. Houses all over the Lower Nine now bore search markings left behind by FEMA Search and Rescue Teams beginning to go door-to-door. A fluorescent orange X was spray-painted near each point of entry. The left quadrant contained the team identifier and indicated the date and time they had entered the house; the top quadrant indicated the time they left; the right quadrant warned of any dangerous hazards or chemicals inside. The bottom quadrant was the portion that interested Nick; a simple D preceded by a number told him how many bodies he could expect to find inside.
And after six days of bloating in the tepid water, cadavers in the “fresh-floating” stage of decomposition were conveniently popping to the surface for easy examination. Nick briefly inspected each one but so far had discovered no further anomalies; the blowfly activity and general condition of each of the bodies indicated probable hurricane-related deaths. Nick wondered if there were any more anomalies left to find; just because he had been lucky enough to stumble onto a few didn’t mean there were more.
Nick looked down at his feet; J.T. was curled up unconscious in the bow. The boy had been a real trouper all afternoon, working alongside Nick and LaTourneau without complaint—but he was still just a boy, and an hour ago he’d sunk down without a word and surrendered to sleep. Nick turned and looked at LaTourneau in the stern; he wondered if his new partner was as exhausted as he was. He knew there was no way to ask; Nick had promised to work as long and as hard as LaTourneau did, and LaTourneau would have to be the one to call it quits. All afternoon they had worked without a break, hurrying from one task to another. There seemed to be a kind of perverse competition between them. Nick had told LaTourneau that they could help each other, that they could reduce the load between them, but he wondered if just the opposite was happening; he wondered if they were egging each other on, refusing to take rest or refreshment when they might have done so alone. Nick wasn’t sure how long he could keep it up, but it really didn’t matter—he knew he couldn’t quit, and LaTourneau probably couldn’t either.