Interview #9

— Henry Reynolds

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

You know how Baton Rouge got its name, right? Back in the seventeenth century, this French explorer came up the Mississippi, rounded a bend in the water and found this huge cedar tree with dead fish and animals nailed to it. He called it the Red Stick. Baton Rouge.

Me, I always wondered about that. That explorer was a good Christian, same as we are, he could see that Red Stick for what it was. But it still musta got into his head, because when it came time to name that settlement they founded . . .

Course, I ain’t educated the way you are. I’m just a retired Louisiana cop, never got past high school, and I ain’t ashamed of that, neither. But I reckon I can tell you a tale to make you wonder if that explorer mighta been onto something, when he decided to call his brand new settlement after that Red Stick, that offering to the Devil himself.

 

There was three of us — me, Mike Stone and Randy Lewis — been hunting this guy for days. Robaire Lebrun; a tragic excuse for a man. Sold drugs, pimped his woman, beat his momma; an all-round blot on society. Well, now he’d shot some other piece of trash, and we was coming after him for Murder One.

We chased him, and we lost him, and we found him, and we chased him again. He ran like a frightened rabbit; but we chased him right across town, on foot I might add, which tells you how bad we wanted him. Finally had him pinned in the alley down the back of Peachtree Street.

We’d done all the running we could stand that day, and we was hot and tired and thirsty. I took out my piece.

‘Robaire, I am just about done chasing your sorry self! Don’t you make me shoot you now.’

He looked at us wild-eyed, chest heaving, hands scrabbling. Probably high on something; he mostly was. And then, darn if he didn’t find an unlocked door and dash inside.

‘Go around the front,’ gasped Mike. ‘I’ll take back.’

It was July, and we was sweating like hogs. Mike opened the door and snuck inside. Randy and I ran back down the alley, wiping our foreheads, counting doors, round to the sidewalk to find the fifth building, which turned out to be a restaurant. The afternoon sun was like a poke in the eye.

‘There he is,’ I gasped, pointing. ‘Look!’

He was walking out of that restaurant like he didn’t have a care in the world.

‘Robaire!’ I shouted. ‘Robaire Lebrun!’

He didn’t even flinch, just kept right on rolling. The sun made my eyes water, but we both saw it — clear as day — he turned towards the restaurant — reached into his pocket — and started back.

No way was he walking back in there and shooting his way outta trouble; not with my friend and fellow officer inside. I figured I had no choice.

So I shot him.

 

 

How did it feel? Dear Lord, how the — how d’you think it felt? Not good, okay? The Good Book tells us, Thou Shalt Not Kill, and a sin that grave’s a heavy burden. But what you don’t realise — because it’s the job of folks like me to fix it so you don’t have to realise — is we are in a war out there. And in wars, people die. Was Robaire’s life worth the lives of the restaurant customers? Not a chance. So yeah, I shot to kill, you bet. Clean shot, straight to the heart; dropped him like a sack of potatoes.

 

Robaire Lebrun, lying on the sidewalk in a pool of his own blood. Mike and I had him covered just in case, but we was pretty tarnation sure he was dead. Crowd starts to gather. Randy gets on the radio and calls it in. We keep our pieces trained on him and listen to the pretty girl in Dispatch taking notes.

‘Ambulance required, repeat, ambulance required. Suspect has been shot resisting arrest. Yes, m’am, that’s right, shot resisting arrest. We had cause to believe he was about to open fire on a crowded restaurant. Robaire Lebrun, African American male, five seven tall, slender build . . .’

Mike and I start to feel uneasy.

‘We’re outside the Bubbling Saucepan Diner on Peachtree Street. Crowd is gathering, repeat, crowd is gathering.’ Code for we shot a black guy, get here quick. ‘Request back-up . . .’

‘Looks bigger’n five, seven,’ murmured Mike.

‘Says five, seven on the rap sheet,’ I murmured back.

‘Ain’t skinny neither. And Robaire was wearin’ a T-shirt. This guy’s wearing a dress shirt.’

We stared at each other.

 

 

Let’s be clear. We saw a man who broadly matched the description of our suspect come out of the location we knew he was in and make a threatening gesture, and we reacted accordingly. The death of Mr Daniel Arbuckle was a tragic mistake. He was a decent man and a credit to his community — a little forgetfulness about restaurant bills aside — who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that’s the nature of the war we’re engaged in. We were exonerated before a disciplinary board and by the coroner.

I can see from your face the thoughts you’re entertaining. Well, I recommend you put those thoughts right back out on the doorstep. Yes, Mr Arbuckle wasn’t the first man I shot in the line of duty. In point of fact, he was the third. And yes, as it happened, all three of them were black. You know what that means? It means I am a cop.

You know how many drug dealers I put away? How many pimps? How many whores? How many robbers and wife-beaters and carjackers?

Know how many of ’em was white?

 

So we went through the disciplinary, not the first for any of us. We went to church and asked forgiveness, and prayed for the soul of Mr Arbuckle. We put it behind us. That’s what you have to do, the only way to live with it. We eventually got Robaire, and sent him down for fifteen to twenty. We went on fighting the good fight. Summer turned to Fall, and the rains started coming in.

And then, one night . . .

 

I’d seen this girl — this woman — at the inquest. There was a million reasons why I shouldn’t have been looking. She sat by the family of Mr Arbuckle, and Lord knows we had little enough to say to each other. I was far too old and fat and bald for her; and I was kind of seeing Marilena from the traffic division besides. But I swear, when I laid eyes on her . . . she was like a poem set to Blues music.

She was the colour of sweet chocolate, and she had kind of a beige-coloured dress — I don’t know the proper name for it — but she wore it like it was her skin. Her hair curled like ribbons on a jeweller’s box, long black ribbons held back from her face with clips like butterflies. She wasn’t skinny the way the girls all seem to be nowadays, she was curvy and ripe and — ah, hell, she was womanly, meaning she reminded me I was a man, and that’s as dainty as I know how to say it. I stole glances at her whenever I could, while the Medical Examiner droned, and Mr Arbuckle sat stiff and straight as if he’d died there, and Mrs Arbuckle’s mother wept into a tissue.

And when I was in the witness box, I saw her watching me.

I admit I sucked my gut in, stood a little straighter. I felt dumb doing it, but as I live and breathe, she truly was that luscious. She made even a middle-aged man who oughta know better wish he was young and sinful again.

‘So, Officer Reynolds, you both saw Mr Arbuckle reach inside his jacket, is that your statement?’ prompted the ME, and I dragged my attention away from her mouth and back to the business at hand. But I could feel her eyes on me the whole time.

I admit I was more’n a little flustered when I finally got down off of the stand. To be perfectly honest, it felt like she couldn’t wait to get her hands on me.

When I got back on duty, I looked through the Arbuckle file for any clues about who she might be. Arbuckle had a sister, but it wasn’t her — nice girl, but nothing like that siren who’d been haunting my dreams. Wasn’t his girlfriend neither — she was a pretty redhead from Pennsylvania. Certainly wasn’t his mother. Didn’t seem to be any part of his extended family. I asked around, but nobody else even remembered her — nobody except Mike and Randy, and believe me, they’d noticed her too.

I guess some dumb-ass part of me was looking out for her for a while, wondering if she’d show up at the station, needing a little advice from the officer she’d seen at the inquest. But she never showed.

Not until that Godforsaken night.

 

Marilena and I had drifted apart, nothing dramatic, it just fizzled, so I was home alone. I was watching the game and drinking the fourth beer of the night when the doorbell rang. A cop’s gotta be careful, so I checked out the kitchen window first.

The rain was coming down heavy, and she was stood beneath the porch light wearing a black leather coat and long black leather boots. The rain clung to her hair like diamonds. I sucked in my breath. My hand was right on the lock, and I must confess it was trembling a little.

Then, something; that tickle of intuition . . .

‘Can I help you?’ I asked instead, through the door.

‘Officer Reynolds?’ She didn’t sound local; more kinda Bajan, I guess. A voice that could read from the phone book and make it sound like an invitation.

‘Yeah,’ I said cautiously.

‘I would like to come in, please.’

‘Would you, now?’ That tickle becoming something stronger. I wished I’d got my gun. I could see it lying by the chair, but I wanted to stay where I could see her.

‘Is that a problem?’

‘I saw you at the inquest,’ I said, stalling.

‘And I saw you.’ She smiled widely. ‘I remembered you. If it’s convenient, I’d like to talk to you about that day. There’s . . . something I’d like to discuss with you.’

That black leather coat was smooth and slick, the kind of garment you see a woman wearing and automatically start thinking how much you’d like to take it off again. It fit her as closely as if she was the creature it came from. I swallowed.

‘So,’ she continued. ‘May I come in?’

No, I don’t know how I knew. I just — knew. You know? Call it — cop’s instinct.

‘I don’t think so,’ I said, trying to think. I wanted my gun more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life.

‘There’s something we need to discuss.’

‘What would that be?’

She put one hand on her hip, and smiled.

‘You ain’t here for that.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Cuz I’m a cop,’ I growled. ‘I’m dumb, but I’m not that dumb. You’ve got better things to do with your evening than seduce a fat middle-aged redneck like me.’

Her laugh was like music. They do say the Devil has all the best tunes.

‘Very well, Officer Reynolds. We need to talk — about justice.’

Keep her talking — wait for inspiration — damn it, what the hell am I gonna do?

‘Justice is for the courts,’ I tried.

She shook her head.

‘No, Officer Reynolds, that is the law.’ It felt like she was looking right at me through the wooden door. ‘The law’s powerful, of course; Mr Arbuckle’s dead because of the law. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you have a gun, isn’t it?’

‘I got the right to bear arms.’

‘Do you have the right to kill?’

‘When I have to.’

‘And did you have to kill Mr Arbuckle?’

‘Ma’am, I’m sorry for what happened, but I had cause, you heard what the —’

‘You didn’t shoot him because you thought he was dangerous, did you? You tell yourself that, but you know in your heart it’s not true. You shot him because you were hot and thirsty, and a black man made you chase him and you wanted to get your own back. You couldn’t even be sure it was him. You were like a man coming home and kicking his dog off the porch because he’s had a fight with his boss.’

‘That’s not true,’ I croaked. At that moment, I reckon my throat musta been the only dry spot in the city. If I’d been thinking clearly, I’d have wondered how we could even hear each other over the rain.

‘Isn’t it?’

I tried to answer, couldn’t get the words out. Felt like my hand was glued to the lock.

‘This is getting boring.’ She was fumbling with her belt, and the dumbest, horniest part of me was still secretly hoping she was just some gorgeous maniac who got off on bad men doing bad things, and beneath that coat, she’d have nothing more dangerous than her own naked self. The coat fell open.

‘The thing is,’ she continued, as she took one of those wicked little fire-devils off her belt and held it in her hand. ‘Since you won’t let me come in, I do believe I’ll have to blow your house up.’

 

Instinct’s a dangerous dog to let off the leash. I’ve seen instinct make people run onto guns, jump off buildings, dash in front of traffic, gut themselves climbing razor-wire. But sometimes that dog just gets away from you; and sometimes that dog knows exactly what he’s doing.

I shot through my house like a bullet from a gun — or like a crude but adequate home-made explosive device through a kitchen window. I didn’t collect my piece, I didn’t grab my car keys, I didn’t get my wallet, and I certainly didn’t stop to worry that I was wearing nothing but shorts and a bathrobe, no shoes, even. That’s why I’m still alive to tell this story.

 

That old black dog, Instinct, dragged me out the back door, across the yard and down the sidewalk, away from the boom as the bomb went off, away from the flames as my modest little brick-built home burned to the ground. It pulled me to the end of the street with my bathrobe flapping loose, like an escaped mental patient. Then it kinda ran outta steam and I stood there letting the rain soak me to the skin, while Instinct nosed around the trashcans and we both wondered what to do next.

I thought as fast as I could. She’d found me, don’t know how hard she’d had to try, but she’d found me. She’d blown up my house without hesitation or remorse. She’d given me no second chance.

She’d had two more of those babies on her belt.

And then Instinct was back in charge, pulling on the leash, and I was running through wet streets in my bare feet towards Randy’s house.

 

Randy had this Gulf Coast-style cottage, something his ex-wife Marybelle had been crazy for. Randy wasn’t all that keen, but he loved Marybelle so he went along with it, and when she ran off with a trucker from Houston, he never got around to selling up and buying something more masculine. I looked around in case she’d got there first — which, given my age, weight and lack of transportation or footwear, seemed highly possible — but there was no sign of her, and all the cars on the street were familiar and empty. I staggered up the porch and banged on the door.

That little pause you always get when a cop gets an unexpected caller, and then Randy dragged me in over the threshold.

‘Henry, what the —’

I could hardly speak.

‘That woman,’ I managed at last.

‘Marilena?’

‘From the inquest — you know the one I mean.’

He looked at my soaking bathrobe.

‘Are you serious? That beautiful thing who gave us all the glad-eye?’ He whistled. ‘You lucky, lucky bastard. But what you doing here if —’

‘She blew up my house,’ I managed, finally getting my breath. ‘She’ll come for you next . . .’

He got it instantly. He pushed aside the muslin Marybelle left on the screen door and peered out.

And there she was, standing under the street lamp like she’d been there all along, rain streaming off her coat, hair like ribbons, and a smile exactly halfway between provocation and threat. There were tears in the coat and dust in the creases, and blood trickled down the curve of her cheek. When she wiped it away, I saw half one sleeve was missing, and her arm was blistered.

‘Officer Lewis?’ The rain was so bad it was like God had a bucket and was pouring it out over us, but we heard every word clear as a bell. ‘Good evening.’

‘You got your piece?’ I hissed.

Randy shook his head.

‘Tell me where. I’ll go.’

‘Nightstand, in the —’

She reached beneath her coat and held up her hand. Devil-baby Number Two was in it.

‘I’d advise you both to stay by the door,’ she said gravely. ‘I will know if either of you move.’

And God help me, we both believed her. Instinct was in charge, and he swore blind we needed to be scared, because her dog was bigger than either of ours; she was smarter and faster and stronger, and she had the upper hand. She’d given all of us that look in the witness box and we were men and men are dumb-ass optimists, so we’d all looked for her, and come up empty. But she’d found us like it was nothing at all.

‘What do you want?’ Randy asked.

When she smiled, we saw her white, sharp teeth.

‘I want to come in,’ she said. ‘To talk to you.’

‘About Mr Arbuckle?’ asked Randy warily.

‘About Mr Daniel Arbuckle, and about Mr Theodore Santiago. I wonder if you gentlemen can tell me what these names have in common?’

Again the dog’s advice, I inched away from the doorway.

‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Don’t do that, Officer Reynolds.’

I stopped.

‘They’re both — ah — men of colour,’ said Randy.

‘Indeed. Tell me, Officer Reynolds. Is it true your father was a Klansman?’

We looked at each other.

 

Yeah, as it happens, she was right. My daddy was a Klansman, my granddaddy too. And I ain’t ashamed of that, no sir. I’m proud of my heritage and of my ancestors. Some of what they did was wrong, but I reckon some of what all of our parents did was wrong. Honour thy father and mother; that’s what we’re all commanded to do. I may not agree with every choice they made, but I certainly won’t disrespect them to a stranger.

But I’ll tell you again, and this is all I’ll say on that subject; I am a cop. For thirty-one years I protected, and I served. Want to know who I protected? Those very same black people you got such a look on your face about. I went into their parts of town, walked those mean streets, arrested the bad elements in their communities. I spent my working career watching over the black people of Baton Rouge. What would your friends back up in Washington State make of that? How do y’all like them apples, huh?

 

Randy, bless his heart, spoke up for me.

‘Henry’s a good man. His daddy mighta made some mistakes, but this is America, we can all rise above our past. Ma’am, if you’re dissatisfied with an officer of the law, you can make your complaint to —’

‘This isn’t about the law,’ she said scornfully. ‘Henry understands. Don’t you, Henry?’

Randy wiped sweat off his nose. He always sweated when he got nervous. I did stake-out with him once, three shifts of twelve hours straight watching a crack-house. Randy never had to pee once.

‘Mr Santiago was shot resisting arrest.’

‘How much resistance can a man put up when he’s making love to the woman he’s stone crazy about? He was in bed with her when you found him, wasn’t he? Oh, there was a gun in the nightstand, but he wasn’t reaching for it, was he? You just decided he deserved to die.’

My turn to paddle Randy’s canoe.

‘Ma’am, we shot him, both of us, because he was dangerous. He was a dealer, he ran a crack house —’

‘But you didn’t shoot him because he was a drug dealer. You did it because of his girlfriend. You killed a black man because he was sleeping with a white woman. Officer Lewis, you shot him first, through the back of his ribcage and into his heart, and that shot killed him. Henry, you came in afterwards and put one in the back of his head, just to make sure. You didn’t even know she was underneath him until you heard her screaming.’

I watched my thoughts scrolling past the space behind Randy’s eyes.

How does she know all this?

Forget about that, just keep her talking.

Randy cleared his throat, his voice as careful as if he was proposing. ‘Ma’am, may I ask if this — this business is personal to you?’

‘Personal. Hmm. As in, pertaining to a particular person? Yes, Officer Lewis, I’d say this is personal.’

‘Mr Santiago was a relative?’ Trying to build a rapport. To remind her she was human. Randy knew the drill same as I did.

‘Oh, if you look hard enough, we’re all relatives. I suppose you could say I’m acting on behalf of someone for whom it’s personal.’ She sighed, and inspected the blisters on her forearm. ‘Something tells me you’re not going to let me in.’

‘Ma’am, if I accidentally did harm to someone in your family then I truly do apologise, but you have to understand —’

That laugh again, beautiful the way a wolf’s beautiful when it howls to the moon.

‘And I truly do apologise for what I did to Henry’s house. Likewise for what I’m about to do to yours. But you have to understand some things are inevitable. You men with your guns and your badges, you try to tame the beast, kill it with laws and civilisation. But sometimes, the beast has to fight back. Just to remind you a gun will only get you so far.’

We saw the light move along her leather-clad arm as she made the throw.

And once again I was running, Randy running too, both of us pulled by that wild dog, Instinct. My legs were like jelly, but Instinct didn’t care. Randy and I lit outta that house just as the boom of the explosion hit. A plank of burning wood hit my head and set fire to the little bits of hair I had left. The smell of burning hair’s disgusting. Specially when it’s your own.

 

Randy was wearing sweats and a T-shirt. By sheer good luck he had the keys to his flatbed in his pocket.

‘Where’s Mike?’ he demanded as he accelerated down the street.

‘Out at the mud hut.’

‘Again? He ain’t with that chick he was seeing?’

I squeezed about a pint of water outta the sleeve of my bathrobe. ‘Mike likes it in the Bayou.’

‘I swear, that man’s a gator at heart.’

‘Good, cuz we’re gonna need a gator to take her on.’

The tires squealed as we turned the corner.

‘Who d’you think she is?’ asked Randy after a minute. ‘You think she’s a pro?’

I laughed. Weren’t no way she was a pro. We get ’em, same as any big city, but hit-men almost always work for gangs and dealers, which means they mostly just kill bangers and dealers, and other hit-men. Plus, they’re always men. Beautiful women have just one use in Gangland, and it don’t involve a whole lotta personal freedom.

‘No,’ I said. ‘She ain’t a pro.’

‘So who is she?’

‘Randy, I don’t know.’ I knew what I thought, but I didn’t want to say it out loud.

‘You reckon she’ll find us out there?’

‘She’ll find us.’

‘But how? That little shack’s just about built outta sticks and straw. It ain’t on any map I’ve seen. Remember that fishing trip Mike made us all take that time? Hell, there ain’t even a road!’

‘She’ll find us,’ I repeated. I squeezed the other sleeve, got another pint of water out.

Randy opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again.

We picked splinters of wood out of our skin and clothes as we drove.

 

Why’d we run for the Bayou? Good question. Why Mike’s sorry little shack, when we was both serving officers who coulda gone to any station in town, raised the roof and turned the troops loose on that beautiful hellion who was hunting us down? It made no sense at all. But we weren’t thinking like cops any more. We was barely thinking at all. Instinct had slipped its leash.

But there’s another answer, one I ain’t never dared say out loud before now. America’s a Christian land: one nation, united under God, whose son Jesus died for our sins. But here in Louisiana, we got this other thing. It came outta the slave quarters, and it’s something we ain’t never civilised away, no matter how many tax dollars goes into trying, and we all act like it’s charming and touristy, but it ain’t. There’s the Voodoo Queens who charm the snakes, and the women who pray to the spirit of Marie Laveau, and the Loup-Garou who prowls the swamps and steals children . . .

I think we ran for the Bayou because she put a spell on us.

 

As God’s my witness, you ain’t never seen blackness like the Lousiana Bayou by night. No street lights, no house lights, no firelight, no nothing. When the rain’s coming down in sheets, not even the stars keep you company. Just me, Randy and a torch whose batteries we weren’t too confident of. Walking away from Randy’s flatbed, rags around my feet instead of shoes, was just about the hardest thing I’d ever done. Felt like walking back in time, back to the days of the ole Red Stick.

That nasty little shack of Mike’s looked even worse than we’d remembered. It was kinda slouched up against an inlet of stagnant water, no glass, just wooden shutters, just barely holding together, most of it rotten and damp. Mike said it was simple. Yeah, and your dog defecating on the rug is natural. We’d spent three days there once. It was supposed to be a week, but we ran outta beer, and Randy and I couldn’t stand it sober. We banged on the door and hoped it wouldn’t fall down.

A pause, and then Mike dragged the door open. He stared in disbelief.

‘What the Sam Hill are y’all —’

‘Let us in,’ gasped Randy. ‘’fore the gators get us.’

‘There ain’t no gators now, they hunt at dusk — y’all wanna tell me what this is about? Henry, forgive me — there a reason you wearing a bathrobe?’

We staggered over the threshold. It smelled like the Bayou, and the fish Mike had hanging on a string over the sink.

‘She’s coming,’ gasped Randy.

‘Who’s coming?’

‘That woman.’ I collapsed onto a chair, which in turn nearly collapsed under me. ‘You remember her — the one from the Arbuckle thing.’

‘That — ah —’ he gestured vaguely, Mike being a gentleman and not liking to use the expression that red-hot smokin’ piece of ass out loud.

‘She’s . . .’ I waved a hand. ‘I don’t know what she is. But she’s on some kinda crazy mission. She blew up my place — and Randy’s — and now . . .’

‘She blew up your houses, are you kidding?’

‘Yeah,’ said Randy, real dry. ‘We’re kidding. Henry’s been working on his costume for weeks.’

‘Well, she ain’t gonna find us in the Bayou,’ said Mike robustly. ‘Not unless she followed you, anyway. She follow you?’

‘No, Mike, she didn’t follow us,’ said Randy. ‘But she’ll find us.’ He mopped his face with his arm. ‘She’s got the —’

I stood up so fast the chair fell to pieces with the down-force.

‘Don’t say it,’ I warned.

There was a knock at the door.

 

See, a cop knows something about the power of Voodoo — the power of belief. The Law’s a funny thing. People believe in it, and they don’t. In their heads, they know we’re ordinary guys and gals, most us only educated to high school, a lot of us overweight and cynical and counting down to our twenty-five. They know we can’t read minds or see through walls and the uniform ain’t bullet-proof. They know Cop Glamour ain’t the truth and we ain’t Superman, but more often than not, when they hear that knock at the door, they believe it’s true. And when that fear turns ’em weak at the knees — well, your job’s half done afore you even get ’em down to the station.

I’m a law-abiding man; I was a cop for thirty-one years, I ain’t never had the law come calling. That night was the only time I felt what it’s like to be hiding and hoping and sweating with fear, hearing that knock at the door.

 

We peered outta the crack in the shutter. The lantern hanging on the porch was like a bonfire in the darkness.

‘Good evening, gentlemen.’ She stepped politely away from the door. ‘I believe we have business to discuss. May I come in?’

There were smears of soot on her cheeks and that leather coat had taken some more damage. When she moved, she limped a little, and I thought I saw the sticky glisten of blood in her hair.

‘May God, Jesus Christ and all the angels help us,’ said Mike reverently.

‘God won’t help you, Officer Stone. The Supreme Being ceased His interest in man’s affairs the moment His creation was complete. His son tried hard to save you from yourselves, but sometimes, only your own personal blood will atone. Have your friends explained?’

Keep her talking — make a connection . . . we all knew the drill.

‘No, ma’am, we have not,’ I managed. ‘Perhaps you could —’

It was definitely blood in her hair — when she touched it, it smeared her fingers red. I wondered how bad she was hurt.

‘You’re lying, Henry. But I’ll let that one go. So, let’s recap, shall we?’ She held up three fingers. The index finger was missing a nail. ‘Mr Arbuckle. Mr Santiago. One more left to remember. Three men, dead by your hands. And I’m here to collect payment.’

‘What is it you want?’ Mike demanded.

She scratched impatiently at the sticky patch in her hair and swayed a little.

‘I’d like to come inside, Office Stone.’ She was battered and bleeding and I was fairly sure she’d taken a serious head injury, but her smile was still like an angel’s. ‘To talk about the time you shot Victor Jones.’

I don’t know the name for the colour Mike went when he heard that name, but it wasn’t nothing you’ll see interior designers recommending.

‘How does it feel to shoot an unarmed man in the back?’

‘I don’t know —’

‘Yes you do, Officer Stone. You know exactly how that feels. Mr Jones wasn’t threatening you, was he? He didn’t respond to your instruction because he didn’t hear it, did he? Can you remember why he didn’t hear you?’

‘Ma’am, he turned and left the room, contrary to my clear —’ Another first — seeing that pleading expression on a cop.

‘He was going to the bedroom where his two year old daughter was screaming for her daddy to come get her. She was screaming because Officer Lewis had just climbed in through her window with a gun, the gun he shot her daddy with when he came through the door, although he was already mortally wounded by your shot, wasn’t he? Officer Lewis’s shot was just the cherry on top, wasn’t it?’

‘I didn’t —’ Mike swallowed, tried again. ‘I didn’t mean —’

‘I’m really not interested in motivations. I don’t want to hear you apologise, or beg. I’m just the debt collector, and all I want is payment.’ A trickle of red-black blood inched down her forehead. She wiped it away with a hand that had a blister the size of a tomato. ‘So, for the record, are you going to let me in?’

‘How do you know this?’ Randy whispered. ‘How do you know?’

‘Because it’s my job to know. Are you going to let me over the threshold?’

We looked at each other.

‘Not while I still got a hole in my ass,’ said Mike, who sometimes wasn’t all that much of a gentleman underneath. ‘I don’t know who or what you are, but you ain’t coming into my home at my invitation, and I bet you can’t smash the shutters in quicker’n we can run. So, what you gonna do about it?’

She laughed.

‘Not while you still got a hole in your ass,’ she repeated. ‘What an excellent phrase. I must remember it. Well, as you wish.’

Here it comes, I thought, and closed my eyes, waiting for the ka-boom that would take us all either up to heaven, or down into hell.

But it didn’t come.

What happened next was that she kicked the door down, and stood there, panting, her hair all over her face.

 

We coulda taken her. Three of us, one of her, no-one to see. Her one possible advantage had been whether she could smash her way in faster’n we could get the door open, and she’d just thrown it away.

But we didn’t. Her coat was half burned off of her, and she was covered with scratches and burns, and still she was beautiful. She looked like an avenging angel, which I guess mighta been what she was, and we cowered. Three grown men, and we cowered.

‘I thought you couldn’t come in if we didn’t invite you!’ Randy screamed. ‘I thought that was the rules!’

‘Ways and means, Officer Lewis.’ She nodded to the fish over the sink. ‘Death in the house allows many things access. Of course, now I’ll die too; but that’s fine.’

‘We can work this out,’ said Mike, doggedly sticking to the script. ‘We can —’

‘No, we can’t,’ I said.

Mike and Randy clearly thought I’d gone nuts.

‘You’ve gone nuts,’ said Mike.

‘Nope,’ I told him. ‘She’s right. We gotta pay for what we did. We killed, the three of us.’

‘But we had to —’

‘No, we didn’t.’ She nodded approvingly. ‘I did shoot Ben Arbuckle because I was pissed off and too hot and I’d had enough. I thought he was Robaire Lebrun, but that don’t make it right. We all chose the tune we danced to. Now we got to pay the piper.’

‘Henry, I always knew you were the smart one,’ she said. She was holding the last bomb in her hand, tossing it thoughtfully up and down, that blister quivering like jelly. ‘You might be a fat middle-aged redneck, but that’s okay by me. Anything else you want to say?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I guess — I guess I’m sorry. I don’t know if I’m sorry cuz I’m gonna die, or sorry cuz I finally see the evil of killing someone just because I could.’ I looked right at her. ‘Which is what you’re doing now, ain’t it? You’re gonna kill all three of us, just because you can.’

‘That’s about the size of it,’ she agreed. ‘Officer Stone, Officer Lewis, anything you want to say before I end it all?’

‘Can’t we talk about —’ started Randy.

‘Just get on with it,’ growled Mike.

She pulled the fuse.

 

 

I thought I’d heard how loud an explosion could be that evening, but it turned out I hadn’t. This was so loud it was almost silent, and it felt like it was happening right inside my head. I thought I’d feel my brains leaking outta my ears any second. And then I didn’t have time to worry about my brains, cos my whole self was flying upwards, like it’ll be when the Rapture comes, only I doubt getting Raptured up’s gonna hurt quite so much, and also I don’t think our Lord Jesus will set our clothes on fire. Up and up and up, and then down and down and down, bits of the shack falling around us like straw. And then the Bayou opened her cold arms and welcomed us into the mud and the slime, and I went from burning to drowning, and the mud leaked in through my nose, and I wondered if the gators’d mind me turning up on their doorsteps half-cooked.

And then —

Then someone was kissing me. A kiss that brought a dead man back to life, and I don’t mean resuscitation. I’ve given that kiss myself, sometimes after scraping clots of blood or vomit out first, which ain’t much fun. I could feel her hands on my face, the strength in them bringing me back to life, and she tasted like ripe peaches on a hot day.

I opened my eyes.

I was lying on the path near where Mike’s hut used to be. The debris was burning merrily; I felt the warmth from fifteen feet away. The thunderstorm — her thunderstorm — had stopped. I was still wearing bits of my bathrobe and she was still just about covered with the tatters of that leather coat. Half her hair was burnt off and I could see the head wound she’d been scratting at earlier, a big hole in the skull, pink and white jello showing. Only took one look to see she was almost done.

And she’d spent the last of her strength dragging me outta that swamp.

‘Why . . .’ I coughed, tasted mud, threw up, tried again. I could only tell I was talking from the vibrations in my head. ‘Why’d you save me? Is it because . . .’ a bit more throwing up. She waited patiently. ‘Is it because I repented?’ She shook her head. ‘Then why? Why me?’ I looked around. ‘It is just me, ain’t it? You ain’t got Mike and Randy stashed away somewhere too?’

‘No.’

‘Why me?’ I repeated. ‘You said you came for payment. Three of us for three of them. Wasn’t that the deal?’

‘You still don’t know who I am or who sent me, do you?’ I could hear her perfectly, even though the rest of the world had gone silent. Her eyes were liquid like the water she’d pulled me from, and just as hard to read. ‘But how could you ever recognise me, you poor stupid white man? Your God let His own beloved son be slaughtered, and never took revenge. The word that moves me is the prayer of three mothers, whose love you spilled with the blood of their boy-children. They wept, and they prayed, and they called on the powerful female spirits, Marinette and Erzuli Dantor. They told their sorrows and they made their sacrifices, until finally they summoned me up out of the ground to give them justice. But even that old, wild Justice has a mercy your God will never understand. The love of a mother who prays for you nightly is a powerful and mysterious thing. Henry Reynolds, be grateful you still have a mother.’

And then, as God’s my witness, she threw back her head and howled aloud to the sky. And when she ran away into the Bayou, well, you can think I was dazed, or confused, or just plumb crazy, but I’ll tell you anyway, and you can laugh if you want, because I know what I saw.

As she took off into the night, she was just about the biggest damned she-wolf I ever saw.