Bayou Brigade (12 page)

Ben Slayton rounded the corner, walking quickly to Room 409. Approaching the door, he heard Wilma scream, then the sounds
of a struggle.

The door was unlocked. He burst in and caught the intruder by the arm, twisting it around his back until the bone cracked.
It was the punk who had tailed Wilma from the wire service office. Slayton took hold of the man’s long, black hair and bounced
his head off the floor, letting go when he stopped resisting. The body fell motionless.

Wilma was, practically hysterical. “Oh my God, if you didn’t come in when you did—Christ! he was going to beat me up and—”

Slayton wiped sweat from his upper lip.

“Wait a minute!” Her face drained of fear, instantly replaced with anger. “How did you know I was here?”

Shutting the door, running a hand through his hair, Slayton explained, “I wasn’t sure that the Wilma Christian getting a byline
on national new stories coming out of New Orleans was the same Wilma Christian I knew. Finding the hotel was easy.” He winked.
“I know your style.”

Cocking her head back, she laughed. Very sexy, Slayton thought.

The punk was coming around to the real world five minutes later. Alert, he tried to make a run for it. Slay-ton’s foot landed
on his neck, shooting that plan to hell.

“Don’t go,” chided Slayton. “We’re going to be goods friends.”

“I don’t think so,” the punk replied.

“The way I see it,” Wilma interjected, “this creep spotted Eddie Crosby and me talking with Jacques Telemacques, and then
followed me here to incapacitate and otherwise keep me from visiting a secret military base hidden in the swamps.”

Slayton’s attention cross-circuited. “Yes, of course.” Everything fell into place. Wilma’s news stories on Parfrey tied in
with The Brigade; tie connection was far too obvious to realize, he thought. “Who is Jacques, oh, whatever his name is?”

“He lives next door to the base,” she said. “Came into town to complain to somebody about it and ra7, smack into Eddie Crosby,
newsman. Eddie and I have been tracing a bunch of disappearing gun shipments that Senator Parfrey had been smuggling through
the New Orleans port.”

“The guns were not disappearing. Three trucking firms have been taking money to move the arms and cover their tracks.”

“How do you know?”

Placing a tighter grip on the punk, Slayton proceeded to capsulize the political ideology of The Brigade and the predicted
assassination attempt. Afterward, he turned to the human filth on the rug. “I think this counter-culture leftover should be
placed somewhere away from society at large.”

The hotel detective carted the punk out of the room, charging him with attempted robbery, breaking and entering, and assault.
“I’ll return in an hour to take a statement,” the officer said, excusing himself.

Now alone, Ben and Wilma agreed to a lengthy reunion. Slayton examined her extensively for any injuries while she unbuttoned
his shirt. They made love furiously, bending and twisting in primitive rapture.

Taking breaths in groaning puffs, Wilma screamed for Slayton to stop. She pushed him off when the room started spinning; they
lay, resting, filled with pleasure.

“This story you’re working on leads right to a very dangerous terrorist group,” Slayton said, “and I think you should stop
pursuing it.”

“You thought you could get rid of me at the Washington Monument. No way I’ll let that happen now.”

“I suppose that it doesn’t matter that you’re risking death for a mere news story.”

Wilma sat up, moderately offended. “Who said anything about death? You’ve some nerve patronizing me like I’d run blindly into
a trap or something.”

“You and Crosby were planning to ’fly by’ the military camp, correct?”

“Isn’t two thousand feet a safe distance?”

“If I’m right, these terrorists have anti-aircraft guns in addition to the standard-issue weapons.”

“Oh. Well, I still have to follow it up.”

“Reporting anything at this time carries the chance of jeopardizing national security. But you
can
invoke freedom of the press.”

“I’m sure you’d find a way to. restrain me legally.” She didn’t appreciate his imposing. a self-righteous badge on her activities.

“You bet,” he said, confirming her disdain.

“If you tell me what you’re after, maybe I’ll keep quiet.”

“There isn’t a place for you in a secret investigation like this. You represent the great media machine, passing information
to the public even when that information might endanger—”

“The government’s ego,” she cut in. “Admit it, Ben, they’d cover up anything and everything, given half a chance.

“I know the system doesn’t like to bare its mistakes. No one does. But I don’t think a journalist can take license to interfere
on matters of state. You know it’s a debatable point. In this case, however, it’s justifiable.”

“Shit, you always tell me my arguments are worthless.”

“Not worthless. But not always right.”

The moment was not intimate enough for a tender hug. Wilma was being told to get lost. She wished Slayton would keep business
and pleasure separate. The foregoing postcoital discussion was an unqualified turn-off.

“Howzabout we talk about this at dinner?”

Slayton yawned. “I really should continue the investigation, work on a few details. What you told me about the camp in the
bayou helps me out. Would breakfast do?”

“What kind of clue-gathering takes the whole evening?”

“To tell you the truth, I haven’t slept in almost two and a half days.”

“You could stay here.”

“Uh-uh. The terrorists are probably onto, both of us by now. I’m a far more visible danger to them. So as long as you lay
low, you should be safe. We shouldn’t spend too much time together.”

She frowned. “All right.”

“We have a date to be regular pals back in Washington, though.” He tried to brighten her mood.

Slayton didn’t enjoy reprehending her. But The Brigade would pass over her, hopefully, if she didn’t get too close to that
bayou encampment. He blew her a kiss as the hotel room door shut behind him.

“Kiss off,” Wilma whispered. Once alone, she got dressed very quickly.

Senator Parfrey’s apparent association with the arms smuggling added new horizons to The Brigade’s vast resources. If terrorism
had a hold on some of the Capitol Hill lawmakers, the level of corruption would make Watergate look like a party of mad hatters.

Amused and terrified at the implications of such a threat, Slayton returned to his motel room.

Chucking his jacket on the bed, he suddenly felt uncomfortable, instinctively wary.
Shake it off,
he thought. Seconds later, it was knocked out of him by a strapping, immense Chinese cutthroat who introduced his meaty fist
into Slayton’s lower back.

Another uninhibited blast to the kidneys caught Slayton already off-balance; he moved headlong into the cheap sliding screen
door, gravitating to the cement with a thud. He tried controlled muscle exercises to regain his breath (the Chinaman was coming
after him, perhaps for a bone-crunching finale). The third-story balcony was no place for him now.

Slayton mustered a burst of strength, pushing off with his legs, and propelled himself sideways into the hulking assassin.
An audible grunt told Slayton the move had toppled the man.

They both made a grab for Slayton’s coat, which contained the gun. Swinging into an arc, the Chinaman threw his arm into Slayton’s
path. Coincidentally, Slayton duplicated the maneuver and they both rapped one another in the forehead. The Chinaman recovered
first; Slayton looked up from the floor, seeing the man holding his coat. It flew into the corner, gun still holstered inside.
The Chinaman smiled.

“You want to dance, Attila?” Slayton spat out some blood from a cut and bruised lip.

The man stood, shaking his head. “No gun, mister. You go through me to get it.”

“It’ll be a pleasure.”

The Chinaman lunged at Slayton, somewhat prematurely. Slayton rolled into the mattress, shoulder first, and came up near the
pillows. A repeat of the same move was miscalculated, sending him onto the balcony again.

“Die, Yankee!” yelled the aggressor, moving with arms outstretched.

Slayton flipped over the railing, keeping his grip, hanging over the edge. Although a rampaging powerhouse of destruction,
the Chinaman wasn’t too agile. He couldn’t stop in time, and Slayton did not mourn as the three-hundred-pound Oriental bounced
over the side, belly-flopping onto the pavement below.

Slayton counted two mouth cuts and a mild contusion over the left eye while reentering the room. A towel soaked in soapy water
alleviated the bleeding. The Chinaman was still, a trickle of blood forming into a puddle behind his skull.

“What happened to you?” screeched the diminutive, Olive Oyl-ish motel manager.

“Got a Band-Aid?” inquired Slayton, pushing the towel against his head wound. “I fell down.”

She ransacked the front desk area trying to locate the first aid kit. “In your room?”

“Getting out of my car.”

“You drunk?”

“Just clumsy.”

There was a rustling noise behind him.

The manager screamed at the figure looming at the office entrance. The Chinaman, badly injured, red blood pouring from a split
forehead, was steadying himself and raising a block of wood, a nail jutting out of one end.

His first swing missed Slayton and destroyed a wide-frame postcard stand. The second try upset his equilibrium. He swiped
at the air as he fell.

Slayton jumped over the man, into a hallway lined with soft drink machines. The Chinaman was as a wounded animal, clawing
frantically at nothing in particular and sniffing up blood through crushed nostrils. Another wide-angled swipe missed Slayton’s
head by inches. The nail went into the alloy plating of a Coke dispenser, allowing Slayton a few seconds to retaliate.

A blow to the shin, and the Chinaman cried in agony. Its force broke the ankle. Slayton stepped away as the wounded Chinaman
continued prying the wooden block out of the machine. Slayton landed on the other leg, and the attacker hit the ground again.
A well-placed judo chop broke more bones in the hulking man’s right arm. He was howling now, attracting the attention of residents,
pedestrians, and even a couple of land-surfing kids.

“Call the police,” an older woman said, clasping her hands.

Slayton didn’t want to waste time explaining this activity to the cops. Snatching the wooden block, yanking it swiftly away
from the metal, he turned to run. But the Chinaman wasn’t through yet. He caught Slayton’s leg and pulled him down. There
was nothing else Slayton could do; he brought the weapon to bear on the man’s head. The nail sank into his brain.

The onlookers reacted, hollering and running. Slayton didn’t look back. Police sirens wailed in the distance, closing in.
Bounding up the stairs, limping to the room, he retrieved the coat and ran across a vacant lot behind the motel.

No one dared follow him. Most of the witnesses scattered when the Chinaman’s post-mortem convulsions became unbearable to
watch.

Slayton sprinted through alleys and side roads, arriving out of breath at the La Grange Hotel. Wilma was not in her room.
Although the head injury bled through the bandage, forming an ever-widening dark patch, Slayton searched room 409 despite
the blood dripping into his eyes. Her suitcases were gone; all traces of her stay wiped out completely. The bed and bathroom
had been cleaned; sheets were changed, even a white paper band had been looped around the toilet seat.

The hallway outside the room was empty. Slayton closed the door softly. Turning to leave, he bumped into a mustachioed gentleman
with a .22-caliber, poking him and motioning him back into the room.

“Looking for the chickie?” the gunman asked. Motioning Slayton to the bed, he said, “Hands up,” reached in Slayton’s coat,
and tossed the Smith & Wesson aside.

“Don’t get anxious,” the man gibed, “we were just leaving. Let’s go.” He was too nervous with the trigger to allow Slayton
much chance for escape.

They exited the building through the rear, slipping into a waiting Ford Cortina. Two other men held Slayton while the nervous
gunman searched for the Treasury identification card. It was in Slayton’s wallet. “This is our boy,” the man said.

Slayton said nothing until the driver swerved onto Canal Street, aiming for the wharves. “It’s unlikely you guys would drop
me into the river in broad daylight, so I must be on the way to a meeting.”

“Shut up,” said the driver.

The nervous gunman twitched. “I don’t think you’ll like where you’re going,” he laughed.

New Orleans’ Irish Channel was, in the 1960s, an overflowing melting pot of low-life criminal trash, rapists, poverty-stricken
and desperate people hemmed in by economic adversity. Redevelopment of some buildings raised the standard of living in the
Channel, but not by any noticeable degree. The crime rate dropped, though, leaving the area free of murderers and thieves.
Street violence was exchanged for inactivity, and the Irish Channel became a lifeless urban no man’s land.

The Cortina putted along, bouncing over railroad tracks, into the heart of the Channel section. A multistory office complex,
still in skeletal form, enlivened the otherwise dead industrial neighborhood. Construction workers pounded and riveted, drowning
the windy silence in a cacophony of hammering.

The car stopped near an abandoned paint factory at the far end of the dock, beyond the vision of any construction laborer
down the street.

Slayton was led at gunpoint to a shack facing the water. The men in the front seat had remained with the car; the nervous
gunman’s pistol irritated Slayton’s aching back muscles.

Noticing a bright incandescent light through the dirt-smeared shack window, Slayton remarked, “Is this the Boy Scout’s meeting?”

The gunman snorted back, “Be a good little Scout and shut the fuck up.”

“Do you work for Bathurst?”

“Get in!” The gunman pushed him through the front door, which had no handle or knob.