Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 08 - Death in the French Quarter (21 page)

Farm equipment! You bet.

Still, I had to be sure.

I looked around for some means to open a crate.
Then a shout followed by the splitting and smashing of
wood echoed from the adjoining warehouse.

Cursing voices erupted.

Quickly, I hurried to the door, and peering cautiously
around the jamb, spotted several shattered crates, their
contents strewn over the concrete floor.

What I saw confirmed my suspicions. Hundreds of
GI-green metal boxes containing cartridges along with
forty or fifty Kalashnikov rifles lay strewn across the
floor. Mule was berating Hummer while the others
looked on.

Like the old saying, there’s never a cop when you
want one.

As I backed away from the door, I bumped into a
metal rod leaning against the wall. It clattered to the
concrete floor with a resounding clang that echoed
throughout the warehouses.

Suddenly, all shouting in the adjacent warehouse
ceased.

I closed my eyes and cursed.

I didn’t bother to see what was going to happen. Before the echoes died out in the dark shadows of the
warehouse, I was a hundred feet closer to the nearest
door, trying to be as silent as possible.

Mule shouted, “Go see what that was!”

I found a door and tried the handle. Locked! Hastily,
I moved on down the wall until I found another. This
time, it opened. Just as I stepped out, I glanced over my
shoulder and spotted a figure with spiked hair silhouetted in the large door between the two warehouses.

Ziggy!

I pulled the door shut behind me and raced for the
corner of the warehouse. I rounded the corner and
slammed into Julie, sending us both sprawling to the
heavy timbers and losing my hat.

“What the-” he shouted as I leaped to my feet and
raced toward the ladder on the corner piling. Hastily, I
clambered over the side, pausing with my eyes just
above the edge of the pier.

Julie sprinted in my direction.

Frantically, I scrambled down the ladder several feet
until I could climb on one of the thick supports beneath
the pier, losing myself in the darkness.

The ladder creaked, and a dark figure silhouetted
against the peripheral glow cast by the lights of the
French Quarter climbed down a few feet. “Tony, Tony,
what’s going on?”

Several seconds passed before he whispered again.
“Tony, I know you’re back there. Listen to me. Mule
and Hummer’s on to you. Get out while you can.”

I remained silent, but my brain was racing. Mule and
Hummer? They couldn’t have seen me down in the tunnels. Still …

A gravelly voice from above shouted, “Hey, who’s
that over there?”

Julie looked up. “It’s me, Mule, Julie.”

“Where’d you come from? Bones didn’t tell you to
come over here”

“Yeah, I know, but I didn’t have nothing else to do. I
figured I might give you a hand.”

Mule snorted. Then, his tone suspicious, he demanded, “What are you doing down there?”

Glibly, the young man replied, “I thought I saw
someone running over here. I guess I was mistaken.”

“Huh! You ain’t mistaken. Someone was snooping
around the warehouse. He lost his hat over there. Get
up here and let me see. I got a flashlight.”

At that moment, if I’d had a bad heart it would have
failed me.

“Okay, Mule. Coming up”

Looking back, I think Julie took his own sweet time
climbing back up the ladder just to buy me some more
time. He couldn’t have been positive I was still beneath
the pier but he still took his time just in case.

I glanced into the darkness below at the swiftly moving water, considering it momentarily until I realized
the docks were situated in that bend of the Mississippi
that was over six hundred feet deep.

Since the first settlement in New Orleans in 1718,
hundreds of poor souls had vanished in the river, and I
didn’t want to add to that number. Still, I had no choice.

“Hurry up!” Mule shouted.

By then, I was shimmying down the supports for the
water.

I shivered when I slipped my feet into the strong current of the muddy river. Without hesitation, I lowered
my whole body into the water and eased around behind
a barnacle-encrusted pier, hoping to hide from the revealing beam of the flashlight.

I could feel the strong current tugging at my T-shirt.

Moments later, a bright beam pierced the darkness
beneath the pier, probing into the shadows, exposing
hidden corners, leaving nothing concealed. My fingers
clutching the sharp barnacles beneath the water, I pressed up against the pier as the ominous beam swept
past only inches from me, time and time again.

I shivered in the cold water swirling around me,
chilling every inch of my body. Hold on, Tony, just a
few minutes more.

Suddenly, something brushed against my leg. I
jerked, splashing the water.

Mule shouted, “What was that?” The cold beam of
light swept over the water, searching for the source of
the splash.

I remained motionless, my head pressed against the
pier, my eyes closed, and my Catholic upbringing pouring out “Hail Marys” like a machine gun. I tried not to
think of what was below me, what kind of creatures
lived in six hundred feet of water.

After several moments the light flicked off, and with
a disgusted grunt Mule clambered back on the pier. His
footsteps headed back to the warehouse. He shouted at
Julie, “You sure you didn’t see no one down there?”

“I told you, Mule. I didn’t see no one. Just my
imagination.”

“I heard you talking. If you didn’t see no one, then
who was you talking to?”

“I told you. I ..:

I strained to hear Julie’s reply, but the rush of Mississippi current and the sound of their retreating footsteps
drowned his words.

For several minutes, I clung to the piling, fearful of
making any sound, yet realizing the place I needed to
be right now was back in my apartment or somewhere in the French Quarter where my presence, if questioned, could be verified. Of course, there was always
Zozette Saint-Julian. Twice she had provided me a
cover. I hoped the old maxim, the third time’s a charm,
held true.

Without warning, an object brushed against my leg.
Startled, I shoved away from the piling. The swift current caught me and swept me away. The darkness beneath the pier was complete. I grabbed blindly for any
sort of handhold. Suddenly, my head exploded as the
current slammed me into a piling.

My head spun. I opened my mouth to shout but water
rushed in, choking me. I coughed and sputtered, struggling back to the surface, only to slam into another piling. Then miraculously I was free of the pier, but the
bad news was that the swift current was sweeping me
downriver.

Despite the fact I was a strong swimmer, my life
flashed before my eyes. I’d always heard about the
treacherous currents, and I expected at any time to be
sucked under.

I don’t know if the old saying, `God looks after children and fools’ is right or not, but at that moment when
I figured I was going to drown and my body would be
swept out into the Gulf of Mexico, a huge log with a
ball of bare roots sticking five feet into the air slammed
into me. Instinctively, I grabbed for it, figuring if I had
to go all the way to the Gulf of Mexico I much preferred riding on a log instead of underwater.

While larger vessels usually anchor for the night on the Mississippi River, tugs and small ferries ply the
roiling waters, their searchlights crisscrossing the
muddy breadth of the churning river.

Fortunately, the current in which I was caught paralleled the shore about fifty or sixty yards out, too close
for most tugs and ferries. Still, I remained watchful.

As the current swept me past the docks and the Inner
Harbor Navigation Canal connecting the Mississippi
with Lake Pontchartrain, I toyed with the idea of pushing away from the log and swimming ashore, but each
time I considered the idea, I backed away. With luck,
and a great deal of effort on my part, I might drift into
the shore.

As I passed the last dock, the shoreline grew dark.
Thirty minutes later, the log scraped bottom, and I scurried ashore. Climbing the levee, I peered over a halfmile of open space lit by starlight, beyond which I
spotted a highway filled with passing headlights.

Not far beyond the levee sat a two-story antebellum
mansion, cold and silent in the bluish light cast by the
stars. I headed for the highway, pausing some distance
beyond the mansion at an obelisk a hundred feet or so
high.

In the starlight, I read the plaque.

CHALMETTE PLANTATION, SITE OF THE BATTLE OF
NEW ORLEANS IN 1815.

Despite my own predicament, I looked out over the
dark plains to the east, realizing I was staring at the very battleground over which the finest of the British
Army charged Andy Jackson and his ill-matched army
of soldiers, sailors, militia, Indians, and freed slaves,
only to be decimated by their withering gunfire.

No one believed Jackson could turn back the British
except Jackson himself. But he did.

Jerking myself back to the present, I glanced at my
watch. Just after two. I broke into a trot up the half-mile
macadam road to the highway. With luck, I could hitch
a ride back to the Quarter before anyone came looking.

A crack of lightning broke the silence of the night
and a rumble of thunder rolled across the swamps.

Thirty minutes later, just as the first drops of rain began falling, I climbed from the rear of a pickup on
Canal Street, across from Harrahs’. I wasn’t too much
the worse for wear for before I latched a ride in the
pickup out on St. Claud Avenue, I purchased a black
T-shirt from an all-night convenience store. Blazoned
across the front of the shirt were the words TRUCKERS
KICK TAILPIPES.

Truth is, considering the apparel seen on the streets
of New Orleans, I could have worn my boxer shorts
and dirty T-shirt and probably gone unnoticed.

In Harrahs’ I called Jimmy LeBlanc but all I got was
his voice mail. Three more times during the early
morning, I tried his number, all with the same result.

Frustrated after the third call, I stuck three dollars in
the dollar slots and hit a four hundred and fifty dollar jackpot. “Well, at least something is going right,” I
muttered, betting another three bucks, which I
promptly lost.

Maybe that was a sign, I told myself, returning to the
quarter slots.

Later, when I cashed in, I struck up a conversation
with the cashier, Louwanda, just in case I needed verification that I had indeed been at Harrahs’. I yawned and
muttered, “It’s been a long night.”

She rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it.”

Finally, just before eight, I reached LeBlanc. Hastily,
I spilled out the events of the night before. “The goods
are in crates labeled Farm Equipment. Pier Fortyseven, Warehouse A-Three and Four. Addressed to the
American embassy in Damascus, Syria.”

LeBlanc was not an effusive man, but his “Good job,
Boudreaux,” plastered a crooked grin on my face.
“We’ll get on it right away. Now, take my advice. Get
out of New Orleans. Your luck can hold just so long”

I stared at the receiver for several moments after replacing it, considering his advice. Wisdom said to heed
Jimmy LeBlanc’s terse advice but emotion reminded
me that if I left now, Bones might pick up some hard
time for smuggling but he would go unpunished for my
cousin’s death.

Still, there was nothing I could do. The only one who
could finger Bones was dead, conveniently dead. Slowly,
I nodded. LeBlanc was right. It was time for me to leave.

Outside, a steady drizzle fell from the low-hanging
clouds scudding overhead. Staying close to the buildings, I made my way through the Quarter to my place
on Toulouse. As I entered the lobby of the Maison des
Fantomes, a voice stopped me. “Hey, Tony. Been looking for you.”

I glanced in the direction of the voice. There, seated on
a battered couch sat Bones and Mule grinning up at me.