by Blake Banner
“And a black Brit killing a white American woman? That’s not good. Be smart. Not for me, for you.”
“Gotcha.”
Burgundy was one of the old towns. The streets in the outskirts were broad and leafy. The houses were Creole, one and two story clapboard, painted in many colors, red, white, blue, mauve, and green—often on a single house. There were broad gardens and a superabundance of trees. Downtown the streets were narrower, and the houses were interspersed with larger, stone buildings with wrought iron balconies and tall green and blue shutters in the French style. As we moved through the town, the bright colors, the buildings, and the narrow streets with their carnival flavor of mardi gras were strangely at odds with the dull weight of the clouds and the damp, claustrophobic heat.
I found Congress Street and he pointed me to a bright green, one-story house with a gable roof. “That’s us, sir.”
“You got a hotel near here?”
He frowned. “You can stay with me, Cap.”
I pulled up outside his door and shook my head. “As far as Carmichael, local law enforcement, the courts, and Burgundy are concerned, I am just your commanding officer. I’m concerned for you and, above all, for the reputation of the Regiment. Drop your kit bag, we’ll find a hotel, have some lunch, and then you tell me what happened.”
He nodded. “Yeah, got it.”
I watched him go inside through the windshield. He was one of the most dangerous men I had ever met, but right then, he looked oddly vulnerable. I looked up at the blackening sky. Under that sky, the whole world looked vulnerable.
Two
The Hotel Soniat was a couple of streets away on Chartres Avenue. It was an old, colonial building constructed around a central patio with a fountain in the middle, four orange trees and galleried landings on the second and third floors, where the rooms were. A guy on reception with a pencil moustache, a film of sweat on his forehead, and heavy glasses told me his name was Luis and the dining room was open. We followed his directions through an arch and into a second patio, where the walls were covered in jasmine and there were geraniums growing out of artfully broken pots.
The place was empty and a bored-looking waiter greeted us with ill-concealed surprise. He showed us to a table under a creaking, hundred-year-old ceiling fan. They had air conditioning, but with an empty hotel and an equally empty restaurant, they were not about to turn it on.
“The storm is coming,” he said. “They never come this far inland, but the media…” He shrugged, like the name said it all. “The town is almost deserted. We’re all hoping it will turn north and blow itself out over the Atlantic, but it ain’t looking good. Some people are evacuating already.”
We ordered a couple of martinis and a couple of steaks and he went away to get them. I watched Bat while he studied the dining room in minute detail. Suddenly, he said, “That storm’s something, ain’t it? They say it’s the biggest in recorded history.”
I gave him a moment. He continued his minute study of the walls. Finally, I sighed loudly.
“Quit stalling, Bat. What happened?”
He puffed out his cheeks and blew, balled his fists on the tablecloth and stared down at them.
“I don’t know, sir, Lacklan, mate.” He looked at me with wide eyes and shrugged. “Cross my fuckin’ heart and hope to die.”
“What? You don’t trust me?”
“Don’t talk stupid. Sir. Of course I trust you. I’m just…” He spread his hands. “One minute I was workin’ at the club, minding me own business, and the next minute, Detective fuckin’ Jackson of the Burgundy fuckin’ Police Department is arresting me for the murder of Sarah…” He hesitated fractionally and added, “Carmichael.”
I watched at him for a moment, trying to read his face. Meanwhile, he studied his hands and sucked his teeth.
“You know what, Bat? I’m getting mad. I have serious business to attend to in New Orleans. I came here, like you would have come for me, like any of us would. But now I’m here and you’re stonewalling me. I should tell you to go fuck yourself, and leave.”
He frowned a small frown and flattened out his hands, like looking at the back of them might give him a different perspective. After a moment, he said, “It was Friday, 10th of November, a week after she was killed. Detective Jackson come ’round to my gaff, hammering on the door, wanting to talk to me. I let him in and offered him a cup of tea, like you do, and he starts askin’ me questions about Sarah Carmichael. Did I know her? Where from? How well did I know her? Did I know her husband? All that kind of stuff. Had I seen her hangin’ out with anyone? Anyone comin’ on to her or getting aggressive with her?
“I told him what I told you. I worked at the club. She come in sometimes to listen to the music. I knew her to say hello, never saw nothing special, no more than that. He asks if he can take my prints. I had nothing to hide so I says yeah, and he takes my prints with a mobile scanner. After that, he buggers off, and I thought that was the last of it. To be honest, Cap, I thought it was just routine stuff. I’d expected it after I heard she’d been murdered.
“But couple of days ago he turns up again…” He gave his head a little shake. “I couldn’t believe it. He says he’s arresting me for her murder. I says, ‘On what grounds?’ He says, ‘On the grounds we got your fuckin’ prints on the murder weapon!’”
Our drinks arrived and after the waiter had gone, we drank to old friends. He smacked his lips and sighed, then went on.
“Like I said, I couldn’t fuckin’ believe it, sir.” He shook his head at the table top. “It’s got to be a mistake. I told them that in the interrogation, ‘There’s got to be a mistake,’ but Jackson says, ‘No, mate. These modern scanners don’t make fuckin’ mistakes, do they? They are one hundred percent accurate.’ So I’m fuckin’ screwed. And what I want to know is, how my fuckin’ prints got on the murder weapon. It don’t make no sense.”
“That’s what I’m wondering.”
“Yeah, well, well you might, sir, but it gets better, because not only are my prints on the fuckin’ weapon, they are at the scene an’ all, in the bedroom and in the livin’ room. And I ain’t never been to that house.”
“Have you got a theory?”
He sat back in his chair with a face that said he had, but he didn’t want to tell me about it because I wouldn’t believe him. “It’s far-fetched, but it’s the only thing I can think of. You probably won’t believe me. I wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
He picked up his glass and swirled it around for a bit, examining the ice and the olive as he did so.
“First week of October. Must’ve been the Wednesday, ’cause I was playin’ in the band that night. Bloke come in. Flash git, sharp suit, oiled hair all shiny. Nasty piece of work, you could tell. Really white teeth, kind of blindin’, always smilin’, smooth, too smooth. Know what I mean? Black guy, must’ve been six three or four, taller than me. Anyway, he comes in and while I’m playin’, I can see him having a natter with Harry, the barman. And I can see Harry lookin’ at me and tellin’ him something. You know, like he’s tellin’ him something about me.”
He paused to sip his drink.
“I never tell nobody about the Regiment. But Harry helped me out couple of years ago when I was in trouble, we become mates, so I told him once. Never told nobody else. But now Harry’s gone and told this sleazy geezer. So when I’ve finished me set, I go to the bar to get a beer and this bloke comes up.”
“The tall guy who’d been talking to Harry?”
“Yeah. Says his name is Ivory. On account of his teeth, I suppose.”
The waiter brought out our steaks, set them in front of us and wished us a healthy appetite in French, and withdrew. We ate in silence for a bit, then Bat went on.
“Anyhow, so I’m having me beer at the bar and Ivory comes over and introduces himself. He was so fuckin’ tall an’ thin, with these shifty fuckin’ eyes, it was like talkin’ to a fuckin’ snake. He says he’s recruiting for a job, the pay is s
uperb and am I interested? So I tell him, that depends on what the job is, don’t it? And he says, he can’t tell me. His boss would have to tell me.” He spread his hands to accompany his ironic smile. “Well, I know straight away it’s something dodgy, right? And I tell him I ain’t interested. Then he tells me how much it pays.”
He stopped and cut into his steak.
I said, “How much?”
“Twenty grand for a day’s work.”
“It was a hit.”
“I don’t know.”
“That kind of fee? It was a hit.”
“Probably.”
“What did you do?”
“I asked him if it was a hit. He told me again that I’d have to discuss it with his employer.” He made a ‘whatcha gonna do?’ face. “I ain’t flush, know what I mean? I could use a bit of the old spondulix. So I think, no harm in talkin’, and I tell the bloke, OK, take me to your leader.”
He paused, stuffed a chunk of meat in his mouth, and talked around it while he ate.
“That’s when it got a bit weird.”
“Weird how?”
“He makes a call on his mobile—his cell phone. Then he tells me to follow him. We go outside. It’s late, ’bout two AM, and we’re standin’ on the pavement, fuckin’ sidewalk as you call it, and he gives me a fag. We’re lightin’ up and this big fuckin’ black Lincoln comes ’round the corner from Main Street and pulls up in front of us. Two big fellas get out, in suits. One of ’em’s black, the other looks Swedish, know what I mean? Blond, big ’tash. And the blond one says, ‘We gotta put a bag over your head.’”
He burst out laughing and I smiled at the thought of anyone trying to put a bag over Bat Hays’ head.
“You can imagine, right? After fuckin’ Iraq and and Afghanistan, and fuckin’ Palestine. So I says, ‘No thanks, mate. Forget it.’ So Ivory is really apologetic and says it’s just to protect the identity of his employer, and the fee is to make up for the inconvenience. And also, they will pay me an extra two grand, in cash, that night to compensate me. My hands will be free at all times.
“So I’m thinking, twenty grand—and I could really use twenty grand right now. So I agree. We got in the car. They put a bag over my head and we drove. I tried to keep track. Towns here are all on a fuckin’ grid system, ain’t they? So I’m doing the old ‘Right, right, left, straight for two minutes…’ But they’re cute to me so they’re goin’ all ’round the fuckin’ shop to put me off, and I lost track. We ended up outside the town. When we got out of the car, it was very quiet, very still. The ground was rough, gritty, like old tarmacadam that’s crumbling, and there was an echo, like there was tall buildings nearby. We went through a door and my guess is that it was a warehouse or a hangar. It had that kind of echo to it, like a vaulted ceiling in a church. You know the kind of thing.”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“So we crossed a concrete floor and you could tell by the sound that it was a big, empty space indoors, and they sit me on a wooden box. There’s a wooden table in front of me. There’s some muttering, and then this muffled voice says, ‘Mr. Hays, forgive all the cloak and dagger stuff, but I’m afraid it is necessary.’ He talks a bit posh, at least, posh for a Yank. You know what I mean, don’t you?” I said I did and he continued. “So he says, ‘I am going to remove your hood, but before I do, I’d like to give you a small test. I hope you don’t mind. I think the fee warrants it.’ So I tell him I don’t mind. I hear a couple of clunks on the table and he tells me there are two pistols there, and he would like to know if I can identify them…”
“Shit. And you did...”
“Thinkin’ back, it was stupid. But hindsight makes us all smarter than we really are, dunnit? I suppose I was thinkin’ of the money, and I had no idea then what was going to go down later, did I?” He shrugged. “It’s no excuse, I know. I picked up both guns, handled them, felt them all over. One was a Colt revolver, 38. The other was a Colt 45 automatic.” He took a deep breath. “She was shot with a .38. Must have been the same one.”
“You told the cops about this?”
“Yeah, but obviously they don’t believe me. Who would? I wouldn’t.”
“It’s elaborate.”
“Yeah. Careful planning—and well in advance.”
“At least three guys involved.”
“Yeah, the guy who spoke could have been Ivory or one of the other two. The voice was muffled.”
“So what happened next?”
“They removed the hood. It was very dark. There was a table in front of me but the two pistols were gone. Other side of the table there was a bloke. I couldn’t make out any details. It was just a shadow. There was nobody else there. And the same voice what had spoken earlier says, ‘We have a contract to offer the right person, and we understand you have experience in special operations.’ I says, ‘What kind of contract?’ He says, ‘It’s a hit. You’ll be given the details if you accept. It pays twenty thousand dollars.’ So I tell him, ‘Thanks, but no thanks. I was a soldier, I ain’t no assassin.’ They put the hood back on and we were done there.
“I thought there might be some trouble. They might want to get rid of the witness, but there weren’t. Now I know why. They took me back to the car and delivered me home, with two grand stuffed in my pocket. I had a bad feeling at first, but nothing come of it, so I forgot about it. Till now.”
The waiter cleared away the plates and I ordered two Irish whiskeys. We waited in silence for him to deliver them. When he’d gone, I took a swig and let it settle, warm in my belly.
“You fucked up pretty bad.”
“Don’t I know it?”
“OK, so here is what we are going to do. I’m going to get the best criminal attorney in Baton Rouge. I’m going to have him come over and we’ll have a conference with him. Meantime, I’m going to talk to Carmichael and Jackson. Maybe we can make them see sense.”
“You don’t believe I done it, do you, Captain?”
“I know you didn’t.”
He smiled. “How come?”
He knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it. “If you’d done it, they’d never have caught you.”
He stared at me for a long moment, then raised his glass to me. “Cheers, sir. I appreciate it.”
Three
I phoned the Advocate while we were sitting over our whiskeys and spoke to their crime and legal editor. He gave me the name of Louisiana’s leading criminal advocate, David Hirschfield. “This guy,” he’d said, “leaves no closet unrifled and no nose un-bloodied. He’s a monster, a scary man.”
He sounded like my kind of guy. I called his office and got his secretary.
“I’m afraid Mr. Hirschfield has a full caseload at the moment. It is quite out of the question.”
“I will double his fee.”
There was a small, patronizing laugh. “Believe me, Mr. Walker, money is not the issue. Mr. Hirschfield has some very powerful clients and he can’t simply palm them off to a junior.”
“Can I talk to him in person?”
“Mr. Walker, as I have said to you, he is far-too-busy.”
She punctuated the words in order to drive them home. I could feel the anger rising inside me. “No. You don’t understand. I am going to employ Hirschfield. There are no two ways about this.”
“Mr. Walker! I have already told you that it is out of the question! Now kindly…”
I thought about it for a full second, then took a decision I knew in time I would regret. But I figured I’d regret it when the time came. I interrupted her.
“I want you to listen very carefully to me,” I said. “Mr. Hirschfield was recommended to me by a friend at the Pentagon…” She gave a splutter that told me what she thought of that. I continued regardless. “I am going to give you a phone number to call so that you can confirm that, and I will pay whatever Mr. Hirschfield cares to charge. But I need him, and I need him now. I will give you half an hour, and then I expect him to call me back in person. Is that understood?”<
br />
She had gone very quiet. I gave her Ben’s number. Bat was staring at me like he was wondering what was in the whiskey. I hung up and called Ben’s number. It rang once.
“Lacklan. I am surprised to hear from you. What’s up?”
“I know I am going to regret this, Ben, but I need a favor.”
“Name it. I promise you will not regret it.”
I told him about Hirschfield and he went real quiet.
“What do you need a criminal attorney for, Lacklan?”
“I don’t want you involved in this.”
“I’m already involved. It’s too late for that. Is it for you? What have you done?”
“No. It’s a colleague. I’ve got it covered. I just need Hirschfield on board.”
“A colleague? From the SAS?”
I sighed. I could sense him making signs at somebody.
“Tell me what it’s about.”
“I told you, I don’t want you involved. Hirschfield’s secretary is going to call you…”
“No, she’s not. I’m going to call Hirschfield. He’ll take care of your case. But there is a simpler way of doing this. I’ll call the DA and have them drop the case.”
“No. Just talk to Hirschfield, then stay the hell out of it.”
“Fine. You understand you do not owe me personally, you owe Omega.”
“I understand that.”
“You won’t regret it. Expect his call.”
I hung up.
Bat was staring into his glass. “I remember you said your dad was a big shot.”
“My dad is dead. It’s best you don’t know about this.”
He held my eye. “I don’t want you owing favors on my behalf, sir.”
“Lacklan. We’re friends. It’s done. Forget it.” I smiled. “Now you owe me.”
I didn’t have to wait half an hour. Five minutes later, my cell rang.
“Mr. Walker?”
“Speaking.”
“You have some powerful friends.”
“Mr. Hirschfield?”
“Call me David and I’ll call you Lacklan. You promised to double my fee and you shall. I shall probably be in trouble with the Mob because of this.” He laughed loudly. “But it pays to keep our friends in Washington happy. Now, tell me how I can help you.”