Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 08 - Death in the French Quarter (16 page)

I glanced in the rear view mirror in time to see deck
hands throw off the mooring lines and leap onto the
deck of the shrimp boat as it pulled away from the pier
into the dark bayou opening onto the lake, its progress
tracked by a single white beam that pierced the darkness for a hundred yards.

Punky sped along the shell road, taking the curves
precariously. I dropped behind, content to keep his taillights in sight, wondering just when Jojo would make
his move. I crossed my fingers.

“Don’t lose him,” Gramps muttered.

I laughed. “Don’t worry. I-hey!” I slammed on the
brakes as a fourteen-foot alligator raced into the middle
of the road.

Gramps screamed a curse and grabbed for the dashboard as the heavily loaded bobtail slid on the shell road.

The big ‘gator hesitated, turned on the truck and,
jaws agape, hissed a warning.

“Back this thing up!” Gramps yelled. “He’ll eat us”

I suppressed a grin. “We’re fine. Soon as he-” Before I could finish, the ‘gator snapped his jaws shut
and scurried into the black water of the swamp. “There
he goes” I floored the pedal and raced to catch Punky
and Ham.

“Whew,” Gramps whispered, wiping his brow.

I kicked the Ford up to fifty on the clamshell road,
slowed for a tight curve, then punched the accelerator
back to the floor.

The headlights picked up brake lights ahead. “What’s
all that?” Gramps leaned forward and peered through
the windshield.

In a glance, I knew exactly what was going on. Jojo
Warner and his gang were holding up the shipment.
“Whatever it is,” I growled through clenched teeth, “it
looks like trouble” I slowed the truck and squinted into
the bright lights, preparing to stop as I had intended
when I laid out the scheme to Jimmy LeBlanc.

Two men in sleeveless T-shirts stood by the Dodge
van, holding revolvers on the driver. In front of the van,
a second van was parked diagonally, blocking part of
the shell road.

“It’s a holdup,” Gramps mumbled in disbelief.

I eyed the narrow road. I noticed several feet between
the rear of the second van and the water’s edge. Suddenly, a wild idea flashed into my head. Instead of stopping as I had planned, I decided to race past the van,
and if I made it, that would put me in even better standing with Bones.

Hastily, I gauged the distance between the hijacked
van and the water’s edge. I was about a foot shy, which
meant that the left side of the truck would hit the water.
I completely ignored the fact that the two gunmen were
directly in my path.

As the headlights picked them up, one turned to face
us, using his revolver to wave us over.

“You better pull over, Tony. They’re wanting us to
stop,” Gramps managed to choke out.

Flexing my fingers about the wheel, I leaned forward. “Tough,” I growled, slamming the accelerator to
the floor. “You better duck.” The Ford bobtail leaped
forward, its rear end fishtailing slightly despite the three
thousand or so pounds of frozen shrimp in the rear.

“What the-” Gramps screamed a few choice expletives when he realized I didn’t plan on stopping.

My move caught the gunmen off guard. For several
seconds, they stood in the middle of the road staring
like headlight-blinded deer at the howling truck bearing
down on them with the speed of the proverbial freight
train. One of them waved his revolver again.

“Duck!” I yelled at Gramps again. “We ain’t pulling
up for nobody.”

Finally, the realization that I had no plans to stop
must have soaked into the Neanderthal brains of Jojo’s
boys for one gunman dropped into a firing stance, but
by then the screaming bobtail was less than fifty feet
from them.

Somewhere beyond the intense concentration driving me, I heard Gramps holler.

The second gunman had already bounded out into
the swamp, preferring the threat of alligators to the unyielding certainty of three thousand pounds of cold
metal. At the last moment, the first gunman leaped in
front of Punky’s van just as I shot past, so close to the
van that if it had only one more coat of paint, I would
have scratched it.

The water yanked at the front left tire, jerking the
truck toward the swamp. I struggled to hold the bobtail
steady, trying, but failing to skirt the rear of the van
blocking the road. The front right fender of the truck
slammed into the rear fender of the Chevrolet van,
sending it skidding in a semicircle and into the swamp.

Suddenly, the road ahead of us was clear, and just as
suddenly, Gramps stopped screaming.

Without warning, he started screeching again. “Car
lights! They’re after us. They’re after us”

Headlights flashed off and on in the side mirror. Although I guessed it was Punky and Ham following, I
deliberately ignored them, hoping they would think I
believed them to be the hijackers.

Gramps stared at the side mirror intently. “You
know, I think that’s Punky back there, Tony. Maybe you
should slow down.”

“No way,” I growled, flexing my fingers about the
wheel as I held the speeding truck in the middle of the
winding road. “I don’t know if that’s Punky or not, but
I sure don’t plan on stopping for hijackers.”

After a few minutes, the lights behind stopped flashing, content to follow at a distance. After I turned back
onto the main highway, I pulled in to the first lighted
convenience store we reached.

Punky and Ham pulled up beside me. Ham rolled
down his window. “Follow us on into town.” This time
the earlier animosity was absent in his voice.

Later, we pulled up to the curb on Toulouse behind
Rigues’, and Ham came back to the truck. “I’ll take it
from here. See you boys later.”

Though puzzled, I shot him a crooked grin. “Whatever.”

After climbing out, I paused, looking up and down the
street for my old man. As usual, the dark alleys had swallowed him. I wandered down the street to the Coral Sea
Saloon and slid up on a barstool. To my surprise, Misti,
aka. Zozette Saint-Julian hopped up on the barstool next
to me.

“Buy me a drink, mister?” She smiled coquettishly.

I glanced at her, hiding my surprise. “Sure. Why not?”

Wearing an animated grin, she whispered, “Anything? I saw you climb out of a truck down the street”

“Nothing. All I saw was seventy or eighty bags of
frozen shrimp and fresh crabs”

The barmaid slid two mugs of beer in front of us. I
paid her, and when she turned away, I held up my mug
to Saint-Julian, feigning a toast. “I figure that’s how
they transport their drugs. That’s why they put me out
of the truck. They still don’t trust me”

She tapped her mug to mine and sipped at the foamy
head. Drawing the tip of her tongue across her lips to
lick off the foam, she replied, “Maybe you should drop
the whole business, Tony. I hear bad things about Bones out here on the street. These Louisiana swamps
have their own way of keeping secrets.”

I grinned. She wasn’t telling me something I hadn’t
told myself a hundred times over. “I’m making
progress. I-”

Saint-Julian cut her eyes over my shoulder in alarm,
and a tiny frown knit her brows. I glanced around and
spotted Julie standing in the open door, scanning the
crowded bar. When I looked back, she had vanished.

Julie spotted me and waved as he pushed his way
through the crowd. “Hey, Tony” He high-fived me.
“Bones wants to see you.”

A surge of apprehension froze me a moment, but I
casually replied. “Now? I was just heading back to the
hotel” I studied his slender face, searching for any indication of duplicity, but to my relief, only an open, almost naive face was looking back at me.

The redheaded young man arched an eyebrow.
“That’s what he said.”

“All right.” I slid off the stool, drained the last of my
beer, and set the mug back on the bar. “He say what
about?”

“Nope. Just that he wanted to see you, so let’s not
keep the man waiting, huh?”

My heart thudded against my chest, pounding away
like a jackhammer. “Well then, like you said, let’s don’t
keep the man waiting.” I forced a laugh, trying to appear casual while a jumble of panicky thoughts raced
through my head, all sinister.

Maintaining a steady, babbling conversation, Julie
circled the block and entered Rigues’ through the front
entrance. When Gramps and Ziggy spotted us, they slid
off barstools and headed for the rear door. We followed.
My heart pounded, and I felt an unnerving emptiness in
the pit of my stomach. Zozette Saint-Julian had been
right. Maybe I should have dropped the whole matter,
but then there was Stewart. I know the young guy was a
little wild, but no one deserved two slugs in the back of
the head.

Bones looked up from the bourre game when we entered. He grinned and waved us over to his table. “Hey,
Tony. Come on in.” He rose to his feet and stuck out his
hand. “Hear you did a bang-up job out there tonight.”

I glanced at Ham and Punky who were seated around
the table with Hummer. “Just doing what I was supposed to, Bones. No big deal”

He laughed and shook my hand vigorously. “That
ain’t what I hear.” Bubbling with conviviality, he
clapped one hand on my shoulder and led me over to
the bar. “Gramps, mix up Tony and me one of your
world famous Hurricanes. We’re going to celebrate.”

His enthusiasm puzzled me, for I had never seen him
so effusive. Wariness sharpened my senses. “What’s
the occasion?” I managed to ask in what I hoped was a
casual tone.

With a cordial grin on his slender face, he said, “I
want to show you my appreciation for tonight. You
saved us a bundle” The smile on his face turned into a malevolent frown as he turned and stared at Punky with
cold, merciless eyes. “A bundle it seems that one of us
was trying to give away.”

Suddenly, the room grew silent, electric with tension.

Punky frowned up at Bones. Ham dropped his gaze
to the table. “Why are you looking at me like that,
Bones? I told you what happened out there. Jojo’s
bunch stopped us. There wasn’t nothing we could do”

Baring his teeth, Bones slipped his hand into the hip
pocket of his leather jeans and retrieved a knife. A
wicked, stiletto blade flicked open. “Tony did something out there. Why didn’t you do something out there,
Punky? Or maybe you wanted to do nothing. Could
that be what it was? And how did Jojo know what was
going on?”

The smaller man’s face grew hard. With a trace of
belligerence, he demanded, “What are you getting at?”

Taking a threatening step toward the seated man,
Bones hissed between clenched teeth, “I’m getting at
what Jojo’s soldier said to you”

Punky’s brows knit in a frown. “Said to me? What?
All he said was get out of the van.”

“I heard he said more than that”

Punky shot Ham a hasty glance as Bones took another menacing step.

Without taking his eyes off the nervous man seated
before him, Bones growled, “You tell him, Ham. Tell
him what you told me”

The corpulent man coughed and glanced at Punky
nervously. He dropped his gaze back to the table and whispered, “Well, after he told us to get out, he said
that Jojo wanted to thank Punky for telling him about
the shipment.”

Punky’s face blanched.

Bones’ eyes grew cold. “Why didn’t you mention
that little piece of information, Punky? Forget it?”

“He was just talking. You don’t believe nothing like
that, do you, Bones? There ain’t nothing to it. You know
Jojo. That’s his way for stirring up trouble. I swear, I
would never cross you. You know that”

Holding my breath, I watched the unfolding scene.
Jimmy LeBlanc had carried out his end of the mission
successfully, so successfully that I almost felt a tinge of
sorrow for the shaken man seated at the table until I remembered Stewart.

Bones studied the sweating man seated before him.
Idly, he carved figure eights in the air with the tip of the
blade. “I know you wouldn’t, Punky, but something puzzles me. If it didn’t mean nothing, why would you tell
Ham not to say anything about it?” He arched an eyebrow. “Sounds fishy to me, you know? Suspicious like.”