Bayou Brigade Read online

  “But the same error was repeated six times.”

  “It don’t matter to me, Miss Christmas—”

  “Christian,” Wilma interrupted.

  “I’m sorry.” He bowed in his seat. “It’s a matter for the FBI and the Treasury Department. The Board of Commissioners aren’t to blame for the illicit dealings of gun-runners and dock thieves. Besides, our own security men never reported any suspicious goings-on while that merchandise was on our dock.”

  “Nonetheless, the crates were stolen from your docks.”

  “We are investigatin’ the matter.” Sherr spoke calmly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a board meetin’ to attend.”

  To question him further would have been useless backsliding. Wilma and Eddie departed Bob Sherr’s office convinced the man wasn’t telling all.

  “What can we do about it, though?” wondered Eddie aloud as they headed uptown. “We checked the docks ourselves. Not a clue from any of the workers we talked to.”

  “They’re stalling—maybe it’s a cover-up.” Wilma suggested.

  “Maybe they just don’t know.” Eddie turned the corner, aiming west down St. Louis Street. “Why are you so suspicious of everybody?”

  Wilma didn’t answer. She wished Daughton had put her on the Washington Monument story. That was a simple terrorist bombing, nothing like this current exercise in futility.

  Eddie managed to coerce her into their having dinner together; she accepted it as being the only game in town. Shortly after a delicious French dinner at Arnaud’s Restaurant, he suggested “A little nightcap at my place would make tonight really memorable.” Wilma felt ill.

  “I work out at the club regularly,” he boasted. “Gotta stay in shape if you work hard like I do.”

  “What did you say, Eddie?” she said, disinterested.

  “Am I boring you?”

  “Not exactly,” she said, relaxing a bit. An image of Ben Slayton flashed in her mind, his lips curling back into a smile. Coming back to the real world, she saw Eddie was still half expecting an answer. “I’m sorry, it must be this drink. Suddenly I’m very tired.”

  “Do you want me to drive you back?”

  “Eddie, my hotel is right next door.” She laughed.

  “How about that nightcap,” he said, “in your hotel room?”

  “Maybe some other time. I’m ready to go.”

  Eddie didn’t understand. “Have you got something against me?”

  “Of course not. I’m just interested in…” Reconsidering, she tried to let him down easily. “Let’s see what happens after a couple of days, okay?” It was rare that Eddie was turned down on a first date.

  He stood, plainly disappointed. “I’m sorry, Wilma, but it’s my way.”

  “No need to apologize. Care to see me to my room?”

  Eyes brightening again, he said, “May I see you inside?”

  “The door will be just fine.”

  He even tried for a light good-night kiss, flatly refused.

  Cascading out of tranquil, quiescent sleep, and forward into the vivid glare of day, Wilma awoke to the telephone’s unwelcome buzzing. It was Eddie.

  “Who wants me at nine-fifteen?” Her brain was still a little blurry.

  “C’mon, c’mon, hop in a cab right away, get down to the office.” He was in a state of feverish incoherence.

  “Back up and start at the beginning.”

  “I’m calling from a pay phone—can’t talk now—meet me in a half hour.”

  Wilma recognized Eddie’s car in the new bureau parking lot as the cab let her off at the corner of St. Philip and North Rampart Street. A dilapidated Ford truck, with both fenders missing and its tailpipe hitting the pavement, was nearby, parked at a shabby angle.

  She bounced inside. “I hurried as fast as I… could.” In front of Eddie’s desk stood an Indian, Jacques Telemacques, an Acadian who lived in the backwater of sugar cane fields and alligator traps of the bayou.

  Seemingly ageless, weathered and worn by sixty years of hardship on a wilderness homestead handed down for generations, Telemacques’s face embodied the pioneer durability of the French-Indian heritage well-known in the swamps. His hands were calloused by the plow and shovel, his eyes robbed of their vigor and strength by a life of hard work in the sun as a cane farmer. Standing next to him, almost in his shadow, was a teen-aged girl, Orial. Her impoverished, ragamuffin attire belied an unspoiled beauty, haunting blue eyes and dark brown hair falling down her back in soft waves. This was Telemacques’s daughter.

  Wilma turned to Eddie, who, wearing an impudent grin, was quite amused by her puzzlement. “Who are they? What’s going on here?” she asked.

  After introductions, Eddie paced the floor and explained, “Mr. Telemacques lives about twenty-five miles west of Morgan City, in the heart of the swamps. He was in town getting supplies and buying a transistor radio for his little girl. I was buying stamps at the post office and overheard him talking to one of the clerks—he was sending a letter to the newspaper, all about this military fortress out where he lives.”

  Wilma almost leaped out of her shoes. “What did he say? What did you tell them, Mr. Telemacques?”

  “I told the man,” began the Acadian, “that the Army was buildin’ this fort in the swamp. They come to my home, bother Orial and me. We don’t like them.”

  “Do they have weapons? Guns?”

  “Machine guns,” he smiled, rocking back and forth. “I know what machine guns look like.”

  “Do you know how to find this place?”

  “I know. They tell me to forget all I see. They say we leave them alone, they will leave us alone. But they watch us all the time. Perhaps I should not say these things, but the ghost of my dear wife makes me. The fort, it is a castle of wood, rising out of the water.” He gestured, spreading his arms wide, suggesting a building of enormous size.

  Wilma walked over to Telemacques daughter. “And what about you, honey. Did you see it, too?”

  Eddie butted in. “Don’t patronize them, Wilma. These are intelligent people. Old Telemacques here admits to a little witchcraft now and then, but his story opens up new horizons for your story about the guns. Where else but an isolated stockade to hide the weapons?”

  “A rather amazing coincidence that you found him,” she said, turning to Telemacques. “Will you show us?”

  The Indian remained silent.

  “Yes, of course, Papa,” said Orial in a low tone.

  Telemacques relented. “You will have to come at night. They watch us during the day.”

  “They saw you come here?” inquired Wilma.

  “We saw no one follow us.”

  Eddie tried convincing Telemacques to allow him and Wilma to accompany him to the bayou, but the stubborn Acadian wouldn’t hear of anyone setting foot on his soil until Thursday. “Ghosts will not return to my house for two days,” he said. “When they come back, you will be protected from the evil men, the Army. I cast a spell .

  it will drive the spirits off my land for two days. It’s not safe for you until they return.”

  “Don’t be ridiculou—” began Wilma.

  Orial interrupted, “My father knows what he is talking about. Please don’t argue with him.”

  Removing a topographical map from his files, Eddie obtained directions to their bayou home. A paved road led a few miles out of Morgan City to dirt paths winding through the marshes. Figuring they’d have to charter a plane to avoid the hidden perils of the bayou, Telemacques pointed out a clearing (unspecified on the map) where an air strip would accommodate a small craft.

  As Telemacques and his daughter drove off, they were watched by the seedy occupants of a black van idling noisily across the street. One, who looked like a burly Hell’s Angel, was equipped with binoculars. He left the van and walked to a telephone booth.

  “Mr. Baal,” he said, raspy-voiced.

  Someone on the other end spoke. “You followed the old man?”

  “Yeah, he and the t
een-age bitch just came out of the wire service office. I couldn’t get close enough to hear anything, but they were looking at maps.”

  Baal paused. “Return to the motel and await my instructions. I will be in the city for a few more hours and will take care of the Indian.”

  “Will you be at this number?”

  “The new shipment isn’t here yet. I’ll be on the dock until mid-afternoon. Just keep your eye on the newspaper people. Good-bye.”

  He returned to the van, asking his partner, a skinny. unkept leather-clad punk, to tail the woman. He’d watch the other. Grabbing a walkie-talkie, the punk silently acknowledged the order, and ran across the street to a Kentucky Fried Chicken take-out.

  Eddie insisted upon taking Wilma to an early lunch, but she preferred going back to the hotel alone. “I have to write a follow-up to the Parfrey article.” she said, again discouraging Eddie’s advances. “We can meet for supper later.”

  Walking the nine blocks back to the La Grange Hotel,

  she stopped twice to notice a tall, gangly street kid keeping a block’s distance, moving at her pace. She took a convoluted path, over sidestreets and including a ten-minute rest on a sidewalk bench, but the punk still followed her. She made a call to Eddie at a pay phone, suspecting that he might have an unwanted pursuer. No answer. Keeping cool and not making the punk aware that she saw him, Wilma moved quickly to the hotel.

  In the lobby, she doubled back through a foyer, past the main desk, to spy on the punk. He did not enter the hotel, but instead sprinted to a parked Chevy van and leapt in an open side door. The vehicle peeled rubber, heading toward the wharves at breakneck speed… Turning down Bourbon Street, it disappeared in a cloud of exhaust.

  The heat wave made Wilma very uncomfortable and sweaty, so she headed back to her room for a shower. She dropped some of her clothes on the floor and draped others over a yellow sofa; while her underwear dotted a path to the bathroom door.

  The bathroom door was closed and the shower head spraying noisily when an intruder picked her lock and entered her suite. He promptly knocked over a decorative vase, but Wilma couldn’t hear it crack apart on the rug.

  He deposited the broken vase in the kitchen sink and stole into the adjoining pantry. Kneeling behind a set of cheesy, gold-braided curtains, he smiled maliciously.

  7

  “You wanna tell me where yo’ from, motherfucker?” This line accompanied a swift boot in the groin, sending Ben Slayton’s lower abdomen into convulsions.

  The pimp stepped back, letting his rat-faced buddy take his turn with the honky trash, pulverizing his stomach and chest with a succession of blows. Slayton, wind knocked out and head spinning in agony, collapsed to the floor of the two-room apartment.

  “I don’t think this shit’s gonna talk,” said Rat-Face, cracking his knuckles.

  The pimp took a handful of Slayton’s hair. “He’s out, man.”

  “Lemme finish off the motherfucker.” Rat-Face loved to beat up on whitey. “I want to rip out his goddam heart and slap him in the face with it.”

  The pimp let Slayton fall back against the wall. “No, man, we ain’t gettin’ paid to blow away this turkey. Let’s drop’m in the basement and let him rot.”

  Rat-Face hoisted Slayton’s legs in the air, while the pimp, a tall glitter-boy dressed in a three-piece suit, jangling change in a breast pocket and carrying a blade the size of a machete, held his head.

  “Any money on this dude?” Rat-Faced asked.

  “1 cleaned’m out. Thirty bucks, hardly worth a shit in a pail.” The pimp kicked open the basement door. Barely conscious, Slayton smelled the garbage below as they lowered him in.

  He could hear his arms and legs twisting down the moldy stairs; he was too close to passing out for any feeling to reach his mind. The stairs flew past—he did not hear the door close behind him.

  “What happened? Slayton whispered, not expecting any reply; he was disoriented, unable to coordinate his muscles, and his brain was on fire. Landing in a small pile of debris, he could barely move his face out of the. months-old sweepings and refuse. Breathing slowly, propped up against the bottom steps, Slayton tried to struggle out of the pit of unconsciousness, tried to stay above the darkness of sleep, or what he interpreted as death closing in.

  “Bambi,” he sighed, wondering what became of the frightened young girl he’d left alone with a psychopath in the room directly overhead. His memory slipped-Bambi who? While searching for an answer, his legs had enough strength to slide him back up the stairwell. One try, though, pushed him up barely an inch. Settling down into a seat of musty wood and carelessly hammered nails sticking into his back, Slayton recalled how he ended up in such an unflattering condition on the lower floor of a ramshackle building on Chicago’s west Side.

  The last he could remember was just three days ago, stepping off the plane at O’Hare Field, shaking hands with Special Agent Parks of the Treasury Department’s Midwest branch. Snow littered the ground as Chicago began a slow recovery from a harsh, cold winter. The temperatures were well above freezing, but a brittle wind cut through Slayton’s thin coat, filling his lungs with discomforting, icy air.

  “Welcome to Chicagoland,” said Parks as they drove the highway into town. “I only got a day’s notice that you were coming. Booked you into the Hilton.”

  Slayton had other plans. “I’m going to need a room somewhere else, preferably a lot less ritzy.”

  “Whatever you say.” Parks was confounded. “Why hole up in a dive when the taxpayers can put you up in style?”

  “I’m interested in the locations of all warehouses in the area that might to used to store an incredibly large number of weapons.”

  “Okay, I can have that for you by tonight. Where will you stay?”

  “Parks, we have to move faster than that. Get the addresses for me within the hour. Can I use this car?”

  “Sure. Would you mind telling me what you’re gonna do?”

  “I’ll call in three times a day to update my progress. Otherwise, we won’t be in touch. I want to be able to move around without suspicion. Have you been briefed on my mission?”

  “Yeah, but how will I know if you’re in a tight squeeze, to send in the cavalry?”

  “If I’m overdue calling in, let’s say by an hour, then send in the search team. I’ll be checking out the list of warehouses one at a time, undercover.”

  Parks weaved through the traffic like a true Chicagoan, missing fenders by inches, slamming on the brakes at the last second if an accident appeared imminent.

  “Hey, slow down,” yelled Slayton, grasping the dashboard. “Let’s make it there without having to take a side trip to the emergency room.”

  At Parks’s office, the computer terminal printed out a six-page compilation of addresses for buildings where arrests for gun-smuggling were common. Slayton moved into a moderately unkempt hotel on South Clark Street, investigating twelve warehouses in six hours, casing the neighborhood in hopes of uprooting information. If gun racketeering was happening in that town, Slayton would weed it out.

  Adopting the clothes and mannerisms of a pimp from the South gone to “de Windeh City for Easter Vacation,” Slayton made contacts, flashed his wad of century bills, and mingled with the street freaks. His name was “Lisle from Looseeanna,” and he wanted some action.

  “What kind of action?” boomed one uncompromisingly, rough black dude in white alligator shoes, who sported a lisp.

  “Pop guns,” said Slayton, laying on a heavy Southern accent. “I’m lookin’ to spend a lotta bread and bring home a lotta goods.”

  The dude, called Tiger, moved a bit closer. “What’s your name, man?”

  “Lisle Beaudin, from Natchitoches.”

  “Natzi-what?”

  “Louisiana, brother.”

  “I ain’t your fuckin’ brother, white man. You into the opium?”

  “Yeah, I feed it to my sister.”

  “I know where there’s some good shit for sale. Inter
ested?”

  “No, no, I’m into pop guns, man-rifles, hardware.”

  “I know what you mean.” Tiger removed his mirror-reflective sunglasses and looked around nervously. “Hey, follow me to where there’s some real score, y’know what I mean?”

  They entered a dirty, infested tenement building through an alley door. Inside, past a set of doors with holes punched through them where two whores were arguing loudly, the lisping black man introduced Slayton to a crude movie set and a pornographic film in the making. A balding, middle-aged white man shook hands with Tiger.

  “Who’s your friend?” The effiminate director looked Slayton over.

  “Ah, this is Mr. Lisle from the Deep South,” replied Tiger, grinning an expanse of pearly whites. “He’s in the market for heaters.”

  The director raised his hand in a faggoty flourish. “Oh, boom-boom.” He laughed.

  Slayton forced a mild chuckle. “I’m a serious customer,” he said.

  The black dude looked at the action proceeding on a mattress—two acne-faced gigolos doing nasty things to a bleached-blond actress—and commented, “Man, where’s the dog?”

  “His big scene is next,” said the director. “You want to wait around? It’ll be far out.”

  “Forget it, Jack. Uh, where can I find Charlemagne?”

  “Second floor.”

  The black dude and Slayton circled around the mini-orgy in the center of the room, passing through another set of doors and up a carpeted set of stairs. A drunk was sitting halfway up, bending forward and vomiting. With each step the atmosphere grew more menacing; Slayton could barely visualize the end of a hallway, with two useless whores propped up near the fire escape.

  One of them touched Slayton, slurring her words. “Ten dollars ’n’ you can fuck me in the ass, sugar.”

  The black dude slapped her aside, splitting her lip and drawing blood. “Move over, scumbag!”

  The last room on the left was painted bright pink, decorated with smears of paint on the wooden floor. Three hoods poured over some newspapers in one corner, their feet propped up on a rickety pine desk. One of them looked up as the two entered.