Blood on the Bayou (9 page)

“That is not significant.” Jin-Sang’s volume begins to build. “What is significant is that your tone is unacceptable and your mouth is in bad, bad shape.” If he only knew. “I am your superior. You do not speak at me with words like
nuts
and—”

I lean over and grab the receiver, muting Jin-Sang as the speaker cuts off. “Hey, Jin. It’s me,” I say. “You’re off speakerphone. I’m fine. Thanks for the positive ID.”

“What are you doing, Annabelle?” he snaps. “The road out to the docks is dangerous.”

“I live for danger.”

“This is not the time for jokes.” I can hear his V-shaped frown. “There are criminals on that road. Highwaymen who kidnap women and children.”

“They’d bring me back,” I say. “I’m more trouble than I’m worth.”

Jin-Sang sighs, but doesn’t rush to agree with me, which makes me feel sort of bad. I’m not in the mood to give him shit right now, but old habits die hard, and I can tell my lousy attitude is winning me a point or two with Ferret Face.

Or maybe half a point. With the zombie eyes it’s hard to tell.

“I wanted to take a look around,” I say. “I’m thinking of applying for a transfer.”

“A transfer,” Jin repeats, like I’ve said I’m thinking about sprouting tusks and going to live with the wild boar.

His obvious lack of faith in my transferable potential makes the smart-ass come easier. “Yeah. I think I’m tired of scooping poop. But maybe I’ve just forgotten what worthwhile work it is. You know, since I’ve been suspended from my life’s calling for nearly a month and all.”

“Your suspension was necessary.” He’s starting to sound tired and cranky. Either the fear for my life has passed, or he’s remembering why he shouldn’t care if I get shot at close range. “The rules are the rules.”

“Maybe I like the rules for dock workers better.”

“Annabelle, this is not good to hear.” His response blows my mind. I thought he’d be thrilled to get me out of his hair. “We’ll discuss this when you return to work.”

“Why don’t we discuss it now?” I push. “Ferret Face thinks I’d make a great coworker. Don’t you Ferret Face?” I smile, a sarcastic twist of my lips that makes something in FF’s eyes come to life for the first time.

“Sure,” he smirks back. “Break up the sausagefest around here.”

Sausagefest, indeed. Maybe he’s not beyond the reach of feminine wiles.

“See.” I lean over and steal a piece of candy from his desk. “The Ferret is on board.”

“What are you talking at?” Jin-Sang asks.

“I think it’s pretty clear. I’m talking at a transfer to—”

“No. No, no, no. I can’t have discussions on this. I have instructions.”

What?
I stop unwrapping my stolen butterscotch. “What kind of instructions?”

He pauses before stating, “My advisor told me not to have talks until you return to work.”

My feigned cool slips. “
What?
”

He sighs. “He sent paperwork on you last week.”

“What kind of paperwork?”

His sigh becomes a grunt. “I can’t tell you.”

“What the hell, Jin?” I can’t believe this. I can’t
fucking
believe this. What have I done? I’ve been a good little suspended agent. At least until I agreed to help with an illegal investigation. But there’s no way the people at Keesler knew about that last week.
I
didn’t even know about that last week. “This is total—”

“I can’t tell you that you will be drug tested on your first day back at work,” Jin says in a quiet voice that is, nevertheless, quite effective in shutting me up. “I also cannot tell you that the drug tests will continue every other week for the next six months.
And I most certainly cannot tell you that testing positive could result in you being taken into military custody and held in isolation at Keesler’s Biloxi base, pending a second internal review of your conduct.”

What the . . . ?

Who knew Jin had it in him to make sense for so many consecutive sentences?

Who knew that the FCC could become so completely whacked?

This is nuts. I’ve never heard of anything like this. The FCC doesn’t drug test their employees or pull them into military custody for a little drug use. After the emergence, Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi was fortified with iron and redesigned to make room for the families previously living off base. Most military operations were moved to the National Guard base in Gulfport, where immune air force personnel work with the FCC to supervise the camp for the infected. The Keesler camp keeps everyone plenty busy. They don’t go looking for FCC ops to arrest. Only the worst of the worst end up in solitary in a Biloxi prison cell. It’s like I was thinking on the bridge—immune people can practically get away with murder. I know I messed up when I tied up that Breeze addict and left her in the bayou in August, but the FBI found her a few days later. She’s fine, I’ve been reviewed by a respected member of the New Orleans FBI, and all the hand-slapping should be behind me.

But it isn’t behind me, and this is a lot more serious than a slap on the hand. I don’t do any recreational
drugs that would show up in a test, but what about the injections? Will they show? Will my cure become my curse when I’m forced to pee in a cup in a few days? If so, how will I explain what I’m on without breaking the promises I’ve made to the Big Man? Even locked up in a military installation, I won’t feel safe. If I break my word, he will find me and kill me. I know that. I
know
it.

“This is not fair,” I whisper.

In another rare display of compassion, Jin-Sang says, “It will be all right.” He must think this is bullshit, too, or he wouldn’t be giving me the heads-up. “Don’t hurry to come in on Wednesday. Take as much time as you need to make sure you’re clean.”

“Of course I’m clean.” I try to muster up some righteous indignation, but I don’t sound very convincing.

Ferret Face smirks another knowing smirk.

“Good.” Jin-Sang doesn’t sound convinced, either. “Then you will do what the people are asking for some weeks, show everyone this is unnecessary precautions, and I will petition to discontinue the testing.”

“Okay,” I grumble.

“And then you will move on to your future. Hopefully, that will be here with us.”

“You really want me back?” I ask, no longer able to keep my surprise at this lovefest concealed.

“My cousin’s maternity leave ends in three weeks,” Jin says. “She is very excited to show all the baby pictures. She would be sad to learn I let one of her field agents leave the office without protest.”

“Oh . . . well . . .” I’ve missed Min-Hee; I want to see the baby pictures. I never wanted a stupid transfer, but now I might have no choice. I have to find out if that shot is going to screw me.

I add another burning question to my list of things to drill Tucker about and tell Jin-Sang, “Thanks. For . . . yeah. See you soon.”

I hang up the phone to find an eager-looking Ferret Face leaning across the desk with a handful of tea bags. “Tea time? Do you have any scones?”

He grins, the nicest grin I’ve seen from him so far. “This ain’t just any tea. It’s caterpillar fungus from Tibet. They only make a hundred pounds of this shit a year.”

“Caterpillar fungus. Yummy.” The deadpan delivery works its magic on FF, who graces me with a grunt-laugh.

“It tastes like ass flakes. But it works. Haven’t had a positive piss test in six months. We got a fresh shipment in about an hour ago. I bagged it up myself.” He motions for me to hold out my hand and tips the tea bags into my palm. There are five. “Let a bag sit in boiling hot water for ten minutes and then chug it as fast as you can. You’ll pee clean for at least six weeks.”

“Wow. This is generous.”

His expression takes on an ugly edge. “Fuck yeah. I’m on your side. I mean who the fuck do these people think they are? I’ve worked for the FCC for four years and never had a goddamned drug test, and now, all of a sudden there are dickweeds in iron suits out here every few weeks making me piss in a cup? That’s
bullshit.” He emphasizes the point by kicking his desk hard enough to make the phone rattle. “I do my job
fine
when I’m high. Shit, I do it
better
.”

So he’s being tested, too. It eases my mind. A little.

At least this isn’t an Annabelle-only policy. They must be cracking down on all the people they suspect of having a habit. Jin-Sang thinks I drink too much and knows I occasionally take more Restalin per night than recommended by medical professionals. If he put that in his monthly report, it could have been enough to get me on the drug-abuse radar. But I’m cutting back on the Restalin and alcohol isn’t going to show up in a test. Unless I’m drunk at the time, which doesn’t happen during the day anymore.

At least . . . not as often.

Still, there’s no way I’m going to turn down Ferret Face’s tea bags. I might need them, and besides, drug abuse is bringing us together.

I lift my hip and tuck the bags into my back pocket. “So is that why you met me with a gun? You decided to shoot the next asshole who comes looking for a pee sample?”

He grunt-laughs again. “We just don’t like unexpected company. You know how it is.”

“Sure. I heard there were highwaymen on this road.”

“Fuck them. I ain’t scared of them.”

“Then what are you scared of?” The second the question’s out, I know I’ve pushed too hard. Ferret Face’s mouth hardens and his eyes start to glaze over.

He shrugs. “Nothing.”

“So this is a safe place to work?” I ask, trying to steer us back into lighter territory. “I’m serious about that transfer. You seem cool.” I gesture to the pocket where his tea is snuggled in tight. “I could use a change. Sample collecting sucks it and the money is shit.”

“Oh, the money’s good out here.”

“How good? Like FCC good, or like . . . serious cash good?”

“I don’t get you.”

“I’ve got debt. I had some problems a few months back,” I say vaguely. “I owe a few different people. I’m not going to be able to pay unless I get a better job.” I sigh and pick at a frayed seam on my jeans. “At this point I don’t even know if I can stay with the FCC. I’m thinking about going downriver, seeing if the guy running the cotton plantation needs a pair of hands.”

“I heard his people do pretty good.”

“Yeah. It just stinks. I feel like I should stay with the FCC, but how do they expect us to make a living?” I ask with a tortured bat of my eyelashes. “They don’t pay us half what we’re worth. I swear, this is why people turn to a life of crime.”

Ferret Face smiles an ugly, yellow smile. “Don’t try it.”

“Try what?”

“Don’t try to work me.”

“What?”
I lift my eyebrows and feign innocence.

“I know why you’re here, and it ain’t because you want a transfer.” He leans back in his chair, hand drifting closer to his rifle. “I don’t like being fucked with.”

“Okay.” I let my eyes go as cold as his. “I know you’re skimming the shipments. I want in.”

“Fuck you,” he says with a laugh.

“Fuck you,” I say, finding it easy to take offense with his dismissal. “I’m immune, I’ve got connections in this parish, and I’m a hell of a lot more motivated than the homeless men you’ve got selling your shit right now. I could help you expand your business.”

“Is that right?”

“That’s right, Ferret Face.”

He grins again, less ugly than before. “Lance.”

“Annabelle.”

“Annabelle.” Recognition flashes in his eyes. “I’ve heard of you. You’re the one who left the Breeze head tied up in the bayou.”

“I did. I’m a total badass.” I don’t wait for him to finish laughing. “You should let me in on this. I’ll transport product to Donaldsonville or wherever you need it delivered and I’ll only ask for thirty percent of the cut.”

He stares at me down the long slop of his rodent nose for a minute. Maybe two. Maybe three. All I know is the eye contact goes on way too long and I’m starting to feel uncomfortable in an I-could-be-dying-soon kind of way when he finally says, “Fifteen percent.”

“Twenty-five,” I counter, not wanting to betray how relieved I am.

He grunts. “We’ll see. I gotta talk to Jose. He’s the one with the major connections. I mostly do purses, designer clothes, shit like that.”

“Okay.” I shrug. “So Jose’s in charge.”

“I didn’t say that. He works out the deals, but I know who he’s working with and what she wants. She’s the one who gets the biggest deliveries so . . . maybe that could be something we talk about. If we decide we can trust you.”

“Don’t I look trustworthy?”

“You look like trouble,” he says in a way that leaves little doubt he has a thing for trouble. “But we’ll see.” He flicks a pen over to my side of the desk. “Give me a number and I’ll call you tomorrow.”

I scribble my cell number on a Post-it, and rack my brain for some way to keep the conversation going. What I’ve managed to learn so far only eliminates 48 percent of the population as a suspect. I need more. “So it’s a woman I’d be delivering to? Is she cool?”

“She’s a bitch. Even Jose doesn’t fuck with her.”

“Oh.” I take a moment to look appropriately intimidated and second-thought-filled. “But I could handle it, right? She wouldn’t like . . . shoot me or something?”

“I don’t know what she’d do. I don’t talk to her. I watch the meetings on the computer to make sure Jose doesn’t end up dead while that bitch takes her needles without paying.”

Needles. Score. And I could score even bigger. “You watch them on the computer. So you film them?” He nods. “Do you keep any of the footage?” I ask, hurrying on before the suspicion in his expression can fully flower. “It would be nice to see who I’d be dealing
with. Right now I’m imagining someone with laser vision and fangs and flaming farts.”

He laughs. Fart jokes. Gets ’em every time.

“Yeah. I’ve got video. I don’t care if you get a look at her.” He leans over and stirs the computer to life with a wiggle of the mouse. He clicks a folder and scrolls down through a long list of files. If they’re all of this woman, she’s a regular customer. “The camera Jose wears is small so the footage is grainy, but . . .” He clicks once more and swivels the screen my way. “There she is.”