“Lord Almighty.” Xavier brushed his beard repeatedly. “I got 50 folk waiting. What do I tell them?”
“We can take some. As many as will fit. Say bout ten. But we need to hurry. He’s really hurt. I can’t afford to wait.”
Xavier considered for a second. “Ain’t no sense in panicking folk. Can you take wheelchairs?”
“No. Just get them onboard and we’ll carry them off at the other end. But c’mon, we gotta hustle here.”
Xavier and Ellis returned inside while Scott arranged the cases and boxes in the rear into makeshift seats.
The church doors opened and Xavier ushered them out: An elderly woman behind a walking frame, her nightdress billowing around her ankles; A middle-aged man in a wheelchair pushed by a young woman, two small girls holding anxiously to her own jacket. About a dozen in all, the walking, rolling, stumbling, perplexed yet curious about the newcomers, came out into the night.
“You really from FEMA, just for us?” the old woman asked Scott.
Scott looked back at Xavier who just shrugged evasively.
“Yes we are,” Scott nodded. “Door-to-door service.” He opened the car door and guided the old woman to the plush leather seat behind the driver’s. “We need to leave your walker but I got you the best seat in the house. Mayor’s orders.” Scott set the walker aside and, without asking, swept her up and settled her inside.
“Bout time I got summit for votin im,” she croaked.
“Yes Ma’am.” Scott secured the belt across her.
As Ellis directed the able bodies into the tail, Scott and Xavier hoisted the man from his wheelchair into the remaining back seat, even managed to then cram another girl onto the console between him and the old lady.
“Mind your toes,” Scott warned the group in the rear as he carefully lowered the hatch. “I think that’s it,” he told Xavier.
Two small boys of about three, twins in matching pajama sets, appeared hand-in-hand at the open church door and peered inquisitively out.
“Who are they?” Scott asked.
“Those are Daryl’s boys,” Xavier answered. “My other nephew, the one who went up for the bus.”
“Is their Mom in there?”
Xavier shook his head. “She ain’t round no more. Me and Ellis is minding em til Daryl gets back here.”
Scott glanced over at Mike, then back to Xavier. “We can take them up front. You have enough to worry about.” Scott looked at Ellis. “Do you know the way to Charity?”
Ellis nodded. “Ah-huh.”
“Do you know where Bienville Street is?”
“Sure. It’s Midtown. You’ll go right past.”
Ellis looked about 14, tall and stringy. “You reckon you could drive this thing?” Scott asked him.
“I wanna stay with you, Unc. Be here when Daryl come through,” Ellis said to Xavier.
Scott discreetly shook his head at Xavier.
Xavier put his hand on Ellis’s shoulder. “I know, son. But it’ll be best for the twins if you go with em and then Daryl don’t have to worry none when he doing what he has to for folk here.”
“You sure?”
“Ah-huh. He be as proud of you as I am.”
Ellis turned to Scott. “Can I keep it when we done?”
Scott smiled. “The car? Deal. Climb in.”
Xavier gathered the twins in his arms and Scott opened Mike’s door.
“What’s this?” Mike asked as Xavier set the boys on his lap. Mike instinctively put his good arm about them as they started to cry in bewilderment. He looked around to see Ellis climb into the driver seat. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Scott replied. He shut Mike’s door. “In for a penny, in for a pound is all.”
Scott shook Xavier’s hand. “We’ll tell Charity that you’re all here and they need to send someone. Good luck.”
“You too. Look after them now.”
“Where are you gonna sit?” Mike objected. The Navigator was packed to bursting.
Scott went around and climbed onto the runner board outside the driver door. He knocked on the window. Ellis eventually found the switch and lowered it.
“You’re nuts,” Mike screamed.
“Must be the company I’m keeping. Ok Ellis, straight ahead. Nice and steady now.”
Ellis set off in fits and starts, the Navigator jerking its way back up to Louisa. “She got juice,” he remarked. “But she gets me. We good.”
After a few more jolts—and a heart-stopping turn onto Claiborne that required a steering-wheel assist from Scott—Ellis was soon in his stride.
Scott looked in the window and was relieved to see the twins had stopped crying and were sleeping in Mike’s arms now. Mike mouthed something his way which Scott didn’t catch above the sound of the wind.
“What did he say?” Scott asked Ellis.
“He says you almost lookin heroic, all stood up ridin out there.”
“Ha!” Scott leaned in. “You know what you totally look like, sat there?” he yelled back.
Mike shook his head.
“A Dad! You’re gonna be ok, Mike!”
Mike smiled. He said nothing more, just looked at Scott. There was one thing Mike knew was ok—Scott. Scott was no longer the skitty agitated man Mike had followed out of Boston. The fragile tensed-up driver, looking so small behind the wheel of the big German car, was gone. It was evident in the purposeful way Scott stood and walked and talked and acted at the church, something Mike suspected Scott wouldn’t even recognize in himself.
Mike was no longer needed. His own mission had reached its conclusion. Scott’s still had a few final miles to run.
Mike was almost jealous.
Chapter 47
They pushed down Claiborne in the shadow of the overpass. The lights of the Navigator played on the underside of the hulking road above them. From the high crypts of the adjacent cemeteries, the silhouettes of angels and crosses watched them speed by. They were in the Underworld now, the City of the Dead.
Ellis stopped.
“What is it?” Scott asked.
Ellis pointed up the dark avenue to their right. “That’s Bienville.”
Red spots burned on the overhead traffic signals. Beyond that, the power was out, the entire neighborhood in absolute blackness.
“38-81,” Scott spoke absently.
“Sounds a ways,” Ellis said. “40 blocks? Maybe halfways to the Park.”
“How far to Charity?”
“Two minutes.”
Scott climbed off the runner board. “Wait here,” he told Ellis.
He walked around to Mike’s window. “I guess this is it.”
Mike passed out the large flashlight. “I guess so. You know what you’re doing?”
“Nope.” Scott flicked it on and tested the powerful beam against the belly of the overpass.
Mike handed him the satphone. Scott stuffed it into his inside pocket, hoping it was waterproof because he was a soaking mess.
“Take this.” Mike offered out the Glock, concealing it from the other passengers.
“No. Don’t need that.”
“No arguments.” He thrust it at Scott. Scott stuffed it warily in his jacket pocket.
“There’s no safety,” Mike warned. “So don’t go and shoot yourself, please.”
Scott smiled. “Never. Have to give you something to live for, right?”
Mike laughed weakly. He coughed. “We’ll be waiting for you, the both of you.”
“Thank you, Mike. For everything. I couldn’t have got this far without you.”
They clasped hands firmly for the longest time. Scott looked at Ellis. “Charity! You see him onto a gurney and you personally strap him in. Got it?”
Ellis nodded.
Scott broke away and crossed Claiborne at a jog. He heard the Navigator depart behind him as he crossed into the darkness of Bienville Avenue.
40 blocks.
He started running.
He scanned the passing doors fo
r house numbers, tossing the flashlight beam back and forth as he went. The first he found said… 1292! He was farther on than he dared hope. He upped his pace to a gallop.
At every intersection, monstrous gusts tried to knock him off-course. He drove his legs through the challenge, let their physical instincts carry him. His mind was already blocks ahead, riding the rapids of his memory and his hopes.
Light appeared. He came to a large bricked building and stopped. Dotted about the floors rising above him, he counted several rooms fully lit by fluorescents. He shone the flashlight at the sign over the dark entrance foyer. ‘Lindy Boggs Medical Center’. Power—gennies probably. People—definitely, though he couldn’t see anyone behind the high-up windows. Still, Mike could have come along after all!
Cramping pain suddenly seized him. He grabbed the rail beside the entrance steps and bent double. His lungs burned as though flooded with acid. The famished muscles in his legs screamed for respite. He gritted his teeth, and when he tried to suck air, it felt like a red-hot stone stuck in his throat would not let him.
He’d come over a mile in under ten minutes.
He gripped the shaft of the flashlight in both hands, and when the tremors passed, he dared to straighten up and put one protesting foot forward.
With hardly the strength to even stand, he made himself go on.
3468.
For her. For them.
He came to Cortez and checked the corner house.
3789.
He crossed the street and went slowly along the house fronts, door-to-door.
3881 was a narrow two-story. Scott lowered the flashlight and climbed the short stone steps to the door. He peered in the front window. It was mired in black like everything else. He pushed the door. When it opened freely, he saw how the lock in the frame was a busted hole.
Hesitant, suddenly unsure, he stepped softly over the threshold and raised the flashlight.
The living room that greeted him was a mess. Cushions tossed, papers strewn everywhere, china ornaments busted across the floor. A number of cracked photo frames littered the debris. Scott saw the empty hooks on the wall where they’d hung.
He picked his way into the middle, taking care to avoid the pieces, and lifted a loose sheet of paper. An electric bill listed the homeowner as Grace Thibeaux. He shone the light on a nearby photo frame, a studio shot of a beaming woman in graduation robes flanked by a teen boy and girl.
He advanced past a free-standing central fireplace to the open dining space behind it. A stairwell ascended to the upstairs. Ahead of him, an open arched corridor led to a small downstairs bathroom and back kitchen.
He switched the flashlight to his left hand and pulled the Glock from his pocket. It felt foreign in his grasp. It did nothing to ease the fear which caused him to want it out. The tremor in his arm was back. And was that rain seeping through his suit and down his spine or was his skin crawling, priming him?
He edged along the corridor, his back to the wall. The bathroom door was closed. He paused, fixed the flashlight and gun to it, considered kicking it in, decided that was dumb, admitted he’d rather be back out in the storm, told himself to man-the-fuck-up.
He peered around the end arch into the kitchen. The floor was equally littered with papers, cutlery, kitchen drawers. A wall phone hung undisturbed beside the refrigerator. He wedged the flashlight in his armpit and tested the handset; no tone, even after he tapped the cradle.
The remnants of someone’s snack-making sat on the countertop. Scott spun around, all senses firing.
Who makes a sandwich in a ransacked house?
Other than the ransacker?
He stole back up the corridor and addressed the bathroom door again. The flashlight was too cumbersome. He stooped and set it down, directing the beam at the door. He grabbed the door handle, took a breath and, leading with the Glock, whipped it open.
Only a step-in shower, toilet, and wash basin. He turned to exit.
A cellphone sat on top of the tank, exactly how Scott treated his Blackberry when he took a leak at work.
The toilet seat was up, yellowed piss-colored water in the bowl.
Scott lifted the phone, pressed the redial button, and put it to his ear. The tones of No Service nah-nah-nah’d back. The signal meter showed zero bars.
He remembered the satphone, put the Glock on the tank, and fished it out. Thumbing the cell, he reviewed the call list. The same number dominated. A phone in each hand, he punched the number into the satphone and listened, praying.
The line connected and rang.
Three. Four. Five times.
He could sense the blood pounding in his ears.
Six.
He choked the satphone in his hand.
Seven.
“Don’t you ever give up, asshole?”
Scott was taken aback, not by the instant insult but by who spoke it. His legs collapsed and he sat backways onto the toilet rim and leaned his head against the wall.
“I thought you loved me for my tenacity,” was all he could muster as shakes ran through his body.
“Scott!” Julianna cried.
“Yes!” he gasped, though it got lost as she screamed over him down the line. “Scott! Oh my God. Is it you?”
“Jules! Jesus,” he barked. “Oh my God, yes! It’s me! Oh my God. I can’t believe I found you.”
“How? I don’t…” she faltered. “I don’t understand.” Incredulity in her every syllable.
“Yes! I know,” he choked, the same disbelief in his own words as he struggled to hold his hammering heart in. “I never thought…” He pulled his thoughts straight. “I’m in New Orleans. Jesus, Babe, I’ve been looking for you all night.”
“You came?” she whispered, sounding as though they might be the last words she ever uttered.
He laughed at her disbelief. “Yes. You don’t have enough stones in that pouch of yours to keep me from your door.” He slapped his hand to the wall in celebration. “Just give up, Jules. You know I got you beat.”
Heartrending sobs from the other end. “I didn’t mean it, Scott. Any of it.”
He shook his head, wanting her to see it didn’t matter, needing her to.
“I’m so sorry,” she wailed. “Oh God, Babe! I can’t believe I let it all happen this way.”
“It doesn’t matter!” he snapped. “Listen Jules. I know. Don’t ask me how. I know and I don’t care. I don’t give a fuck about any of it. I just want…” He pulled a breath, his head swimming. “You Babe. I just want you to come home. I love you. You hear me? You’re not getting off that easy.”
On her end, another voice butted in. Julianna paused. Scott heard an exchange of whispers. When Julianna returned, there was more composure in her tone and—Scott thought—an unsettling new note of disquiet.
“Scott? Where are you? Where did you get this number?”
“I found this phone. I’m at some house downtown. We got the address off—”
“Scott,” she screamed. “Get out! Get out now! It’s—”
A shadow in the flashlight beam alerted him. Scott twisted round, instinctively leaning to the wall as he turned to see the dark figure rush him. The blurred outline of a weapon scythed into the space where his head had been. Scott felt the whoosh of it pass his face. The tank exploded and water spilled onto his crotch.
He dropped the phone and grabbed the shaft of the weapon, an aluminum baseball bat. He launched himself off the seat, leading with his shoulder into the face of his assailant.
The two of them spilled onto the floor into the pool of the water released from the tank. Scott on top, both of them wrestled for the bat between their bodies.
“You’re fucking dead!” a man’s voice hissed, fighting to free the bat from Scott’s grip for another strike.
Scott let go and smashed his forearm into the man’s face. He sprang forward and crashed out into the corridor. The man lashed the bat backward, a blind overhead swipe which caught Scott between his shoulder blades e
nough to take the wind from his chest.
Scott snatched the flashlight and spun onto his back, in time to see the man scramble on his knees into the corridor, the bat primed above his head. Scott raised the flashlight and the wild downward swing of the bat deflected off its stiff handle, almost tearing Scott’s wrist apart with the force. The beam died and Scott only heard the tip of the bat crash into the floor, felt the jarring impact beside his head.
He rolled desperately and slammed his body against the grounded bat before it lifted again. It snapped free from its holder’s grasp and clattered loose on the floor.
Fighting blind, Scott had one chance. He drove his fist upward, as hard as he had ever wanted to hurt someone. He felt the sweet contact it made with a human nose, heard the sound of an injured scream in the blackness.
Scott lunged through the bathroom door, instantly sweeping his arm through the water for the Glock.
Incensed shambling stumbling sounded in the corridor. Scott flicked the open bathroom door with his trailing foot and pushed it outward.
A jolting force shoved it back in.
The Glock appeared between his fingers.
The man advanced, crashing his foot down on Scott’s other ankle.
Scott flipped over, lifted the Glock, and throttled the trigger.
A volley of sound and fury exploded at the end of his arm.
He let go of the trigger. Grey light and white noise swamped his senses.
A limp form collapsed onto him like a sack of spuds.
“Jesus Christ!” Scott pushed the deadweight off his chest and lay in the water, his heart racing, feeling more alive than he ever cared to know.
Fuck. What if that was Mister Thibeaux?
Scott crawled into the corridor and located the flashlight. It was toast. He floundered back into the bathroom where an unpleasant rummage in the man’s pockets produced only a greasy wallet. He needed light.
The phones.
He patted around until one came to hand—the cellphone—and he shook the water from it. The screen’s backlight was enough to read the driver’s license he found in the wallet.
Dennis Dumestre. Age 43. Terrytown, New Orleans.
Dennis hadn’t died with his boots on. Scott could see his naked toes pointing up. He was clad only in his undershirt and pants and he looked right at home. Only this wasn’t his home.
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