‘They made the first goddamn move,’ Po reminded Tess as he guided their car south for Morgan City. He gripped the steering wheel with force, as if there was a need to hold the car together. But that wasn’t it. Although the Honda had caught the brunt of two solid collisions, both front and rear, the damage had proven mostly cosmetic and didn’t impede its mechanical integrity. Po was still pissed that their watchers escaped, and that despite all his attempts to halt them Tess wasn’t happy with him.
‘If you hadn’t confronted them things would’ve been different.’ By ‘different’ Tess meant ‘without violence’.
‘Different doesn’t always mean for the better,’ Po responded.
‘You’re right. It could have been much worse.’
‘Only for those assholes.’
‘No, Po, innocent bystanders could’ve been hurt,’ she snapped. ‘You were reckless and out of control back there.’
‘I showed those fuckers not to mess with you; isn’t that why I’m supposed to be here?’
‘No. I’m here to find Crawford Wynne, and you’re here to help me, not spoil my chances. For all we know those guys might’ve led us to Wynne, but that’s not going to happen now. We should’ve played things cool, watched, assessed, we might’ve learned something useful.’
‘And how do you suppose they would’ve led us to Wynne?’ he demanded. ‘You said you spotted one of them at the airport. They followed us here, and were still following us ‘til I frightened them off, not the other goddamn way around.’
Tess fumed. He had a point, but he’d also made discovering why they were being followed more difficult. She frowned at him; his face was set in stone. He wasn’t about to admit he was wrong, but neither was she. Just whom had she aligned herself to? OK, she’d learned of Po’s record and understood he had the capacity for shocking violence, but she hadn’t expected it to explode like that. Its suddenness had stunned her, no doubt about it, forcing her to recall the last time she’d been caught up in a vicious encounter and its repercussions on her life since. She’d put off returning to the field too long, but maybe for good reason. Fleetingly she considered that she’d made a mistake in accepting this job, that she wasn’t ready to return to her old life, and Po’s rash actions had forced her to face reality. But anger quickly tamped the notion down. Nothing was going to derail her from her assignment, certainly not Po’s hot-headedness. It was time to make that clear.
‘We were lucky to get away with our part in that mess,’ she said. ‘Don’t do anything as stupid again and I’ll let it slide.’
‘I won’t make a promise I can’t keep.’ Before she could bite, Po changed the subject. ‘That was good work back there, and quick thinking by you. Having an ex-cop as a partner has its advantages, f’sure. If it were only me back there, I bet I’d’ve been hauled off to jail.’
Was his off-handed compliment a way of making amends? His choice of word when describing their relationship was interesting. Suddenly they were ‘partners’, not employer and employee? She decided to let the turn of phrase go for what it was, choosing instead to accept the unspoken thanks.
Tess had informed the rental company of the ‘accident’ and requested a replacement vehicle, but to collect it from Hertz’s Baton Rouge compound added undue delay. To beat word of Po’s presence in Morgan City reaching the Chatard family, they couldn’t spare the time. Clearing things up with the responding police officers had eaten enough into their day, but they’d come out of it clean. Witnesses at the scene pointed blame for the chaos at the mysterious men in the car that fled the scene. Po’s over-exuberant actions were forgiven when he explained he was trying to stop the enraged driver from ramming any more vehicles – and possibly injuring someone – by uselessly trying to grab the keys out of the ignition. His hood-surfing escapade was down to circumstance, Po claimed, where it was a choice between leaping on the car and being run down. Some of the bystanders watched him as if he was a dangerous beast while others were filled with adoration. Once they ran his details and discovered he had a criminal record, the cops eyed him suspiciously, but he’d no outstanding warrants against him, and no fresh charges were laid. Even though there was much she held back, and some details she delivered as outright lies, Tess’s past as a sheriff’s deputy won them both some professional courtesy. On Tess’s part, it was a spontaneous decision to keep the car’s licence number secret, as was neglecting to mention that the men had been following them since their arrival in Louisiana – perhaps even before that. Admitting to the cops that she – or perhaps Po – was the target of the men would cause complications that would jeopardize her assignment. The general consensus was that frustrated and overheated, the driver had snapped when confronted by the traffic delay, and had taken uncompromising measures to escape the bottleneck. Sweating like a hog, Tess was happy to go along with the conjecture for appearance’s sake.
Afterwards they’d briefly returned to their hotel, grabbed their necessaries, and got back on the road. Tess had waited until Baton Rouge was diminishing in their rear-view mirror before raising the subject of Po’s recklessness, and it had simmered since. Both of them were now apparently growing tired of the bickering.
‘How’s your elbow?’ Po asked, changing the subject again.
‘Sore, but it will be fine.’ Actually her elbow throbbed, and she expected it to bruise, but she’d escaped serious injury. She checked his knuckles. They were grazed, but the bleeding had stopped – it was a superficial injury too. ‘Were you seriously trying to punch your way through that windshield?’
Po flicked a glance at her. Silence.
‘Crazy,’ she said.
‘It was down to circumstance.’ He shrugged. ‘It happened. Now let it slide like you said, why don’t you?’
‘Even if you managed to smash the windshield, what were you going to do then? Were you going to haul those guys out by their hair or what?’
‘I was trying to get answers. They sure as hell didn’t want to give them.’ Po looked across at her, and his features softened a little, along with his tone. ‘Why do you think they were so desperate to get away?’
It was obvious to Tess that the watchers were involved in a way she didn’t fully understand yet, but she’d admit it was worrying. Those men had been on the same flight out of Portland. That meant that they were on to her from the get go, and knew exactly why she was in Louisiana. Her first thought was that Emma Clancy perhaps wasn’t as confident about her abilities as she’d first claimed and had sent other investigators on the same trail. But if that were the case, she hardly expected investigators to react the way those guys had. Twice they’d been spotted in suspicious circumstances; twice they’d fled, the latter time employing extreme measures to get away. There was only one reason Tess could think of. ‘They’re on Albert Sower’s payroll.’
‘F’sure.’
Tess ran her hands through her hair, ignoring how tacky it felt. ‘Do you think those were the men responsible for doing away with the other witnesses?’
Po’s mouth twitched in conclusion. ‘They’re not the killers.’
‘How can you be certain?’
‘Because the people responsible for the injuries in those pictures wouldn’t have run from us.’ Po checked his mirrors. He’d been doing it regularly since leaving Baton Rouge. ‘Those guys are looking for Wynne, but they’ll hand him off to someone else to deal with. Not that they can find him now; not since I chased them off.’
‘They could always ask Trey Robinson where we’ve gone: it’s apparent they were nearby when we met with Trey, they didn’t just happen on to us when we were on our way back to the hotel.’
‘Robinson won’t speak to them.’
‘He spoke with us,’ Tess said.
‘Only because Pinky vouched for us. If they go in cold, they’ll get stamped on.’
‘Trey Robinson is small potatoes when compared to Albert Sower,’ she reminded him.
‘There’s a big difference, though. Sower’s in prison, Robinson isn’t. A man at his liberty is more dangerous than one guiding things from behind bars.’
‘Tell that to Albert Sower,’ she said.
‘If those guys show their faces on Gardere Lane, especially if they start throwing their weight around, I can guarantee the outcome, and it won’t be rosy for them.’
‘You’re putting a lot of faith in those bozos guarding Trey. They were a joke.’
‘No,’ Po corrected. ‘They were joking. They were being nice because Pinky told them to be nice. If we’d gone in there under any other circumstances we wouldn’t have come out alive. Believe me.’
He was possibly exaggerating, but what could she say? If Robinson had turned nasty there would have been little she or Po could have done about it. Although they’d only seen the three gangbangers, it was obvious that there’d be others they hadn’t spotted: they’d probably been observed all the way in and out of the neighbourhood. Trey Robinson was an asshole, but he was no fool. He only had to give a sign and their day would have ended badly. Thankfully Pinky Leclerc carried influence with the gang boss, and probably because he was the one supplying him with weapons. But what if Sower also had his equivalent of Pinky in Baton Rouge, someone who could vouch for Sower’s men too? It was as Po had worried earlier: Trey Robinson wasn’t above claiming the bounty on his head. Maybe that wasn’t the extent of how far he was ready to betray them.
Po seemed to have the ability of reading her during her times of quiet reflection. He drummed his fingertips on the steering wheel, drawing her attention. ‘If they have a way in with Robinson, then so be it. If it happens, it happens,’ he said, and it sounded as if that was a credo of his. ‘It just means that we need to get to Wynne before they do. We’re on the way, they aren’t, so let’s just try and maintain our lead, shall we?’ He put his foot down, and the Honda sped up, though not to his satisfaction. He grunted. ‘That’s if grandma’s grocery go-getter makes it to Morgan City this century.’
As Po concentrated on driving, Tess took out her phone. She should call Clancy and tell her what had happened. But to do that would guarantee a response where the police would be called, and Tess preferred the opportunity to find Wynne first. Of course, it was only supposition that those men were working on Sower’s behalf, and she might have misread their involvement and they weren’t after Crawford Wynne. But why else would they be following her? More importantly, how did they know to follow her to Louisiana? Other than her brother Alex, those in Emma Clancy’s office, and Po’s friend Charley, who knew about her travel arrangements in advance? Had Po mentioned her plans to someone and the news had found its way back to Sower’s people? She doubted it, there had been no time, but she had no other theory. Until she knew for certain, she needn’t inform Clancy about them, although assistance in tracing who those men were would be helpful. Instead of calling Clancy she composed a text message and included the licence-plate number she’d earlier committed to memory, asking for ownership details. Clancy would have immediate access routes to the DMV whereas Tess might struggle to get the information while they were on the move. As far as Clancy need know, checking the licence number was only one of many breadcrumbs that Tess was following.
While she waited for a reply, Tess nursed her sore elbow, and watched the scenery flow by. Po had sunk back into silence mode, but that suited Tess for the time being.
Moss-hung trees and water dominated the landscape. The sky was pale blue, low clouds barely thicker than mist hanging over the swamplands. The sun was directly ahead, and Tess pulled down her visor to avoid squinting. A pelican made lazy flaps of its wings, skating inches above a waterway, its reflection almost its conjoined twin on the glassy surface. It was an idyllic scene.
‘Beautiful,’ she said under her breath.
‘Until you step on a gator,’ Po said.
The trees, saw grass, and lily pads hid more than lurking alligators. There were communities out there in the bayous, and she assumed some of the people living in the swamps were dirt poor. She thought that Po – or more correctly Nicolas Villere – had grown up in one such small community. He hadn’t said, but she guessed his upbringing hadn’t been a bed of roses. He’d shared no detail about why his father fell foul of the Chatard family, only that he’d been murdered for his trouble, but she’d learned that his dad was all he’d had. It didn’t surprise her that Po had responded in the uncompromising way he had, taking the fight back to the Chatards. So why was she stunned by the way he’d gone at those assholes in the car? She should remember just who – and what – he was, and show him some wary respect. She’d asked her brother Alex to recommend someone to accompany her, and he’d pointed her at Po. Alex had suspected the kind of mess she might be stepping in and had chosen Po because of it. In this swamp country she should be thankful that she had her own snapping gator.
But should she?
Alex barely knew of Po beyond his nickname and reputation. What if her brother had made a big mistake in sending her to him, and Po – an ex-con, and possibly current criminal – was involved in some way with Albert Sower? What if those men in the car were actually friends of Po, and his over-reaction to chasing them off was an act so she didn’t suspect they were working with him? She recalled last night how he’d tried to deter her from getting a close look at their car, then acted as if there was nothing to worry about after they fled. What if Sower had got to Po in some way and he was working with those men, sticking close to Tess until she led them all to their target?
No. That was nuts. Surely she wasn’t as naive to be fooled so easily? She caught a sidelong glance from Po.
‘Something wrong?’ he asked.
She shook her head. Thought about the promise he’d made to watch her back, and in turn hers to watch his. Thoughts like those she’d accused him of weren’t conducive to forming the bond of trust they required.
‘I’m sorry,’ she sighed.
‘What did you do wrong?’
‘The way I spoke to you earlier; I’d no right doing that.’ Tess experienced another twinge in her elbow. ‘Who knows what might’ve happened if you hadn’t chased those lunatics off. I should be thanking you, not getting on your case.’
He laughed. ‘That was you getting on my case? Hell, you should hear Charley at the auto shop; he reams me out a new butthole on a daily basis. To hear him you’d think I was the hired hand and not the other way around.’
‘Oh? I thought he was in charge.’ Charley’s name was above the door, after all.
‘It’s my place. I put in the money when it was going down with the financial crash a few years back. Charley stayed on: he manages the shop for me, and he does a damn good job. But, ha, sometimes he forgets who’s really the boss.’ He spoke fondly of the old mechanic. Charley was possibly the nearest thing to family that Po had. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t realize when I didn’t have to beg the old coot for time off to accompany you.’
Tess finally understood something about him: Po also sometimes forgot who was really the boss; maybe that was just his way. ‘I assumed you were just a loose hand he could do without,’ she said.
Po grinned. ‘Well, there is that.’
The elevated levee highway took them alongside Lake Verret, with the Atchafalaya River to their right, and the Intracoastal Waterway to the left. Along the route various establishments had sprung up to cater for travellers, and Tess could have had her pick of a boudain, which was a Cajun rice dish stuffed in a sausage skin, gumbo, a Po’boy sandwich, or a daiquiri, dependent on her taste. Sadly she wasn’t hungry. They also passed a funeral home, offering coffins for sale: hopefully they wouldn’t need those.
Soon the levee highway was bordered by Flat Lake and Lake Palourde and it was only a short hop into Morgan City, which was a rather grand name for a community of its relatively small size when compared to Baton Rouge or New Orleans.
Po had programmed their destination into the satnav device. It directed them into town, past shopping malls and chain hotels to the intersection with Route 182. They followed the route, which was again resplendent with fast-food outlets, then a right turn that took them a few blocks towards Railroad Avenue. The satnav announced they’d reached their destination, but Po had only requested a central location on the avenue so they’d a short drive to go yet. Instinctively Po turned left, heading for the hinterlands of the town. Some distance along it they came to an underpass, where the avenue split and paralleled the rail tracks it was named for. The business establishments now primarily catered to marine and power engineering, and there were a few auto shops not unlike Charley’s back in Portland. Sitting in a crumbling asphalt lot, through which weeds sprouted, was a faded wooden shack with a tin roof. The doors and windows had been boarded up. Po pulled the Honda into the lot.
‘This is it?’ Tess said, her voice laden with incredulity.
‘No. Take a look over there, across the tracks.’
On the opposite side of the railway was a second spur of the road. Two hundred yards along it, Tess spotted another lot, this one surrounded by a tall chain-link fence. Within the fence was a single-storey building, again wooden with a tin roof, but in a better state of repair. Outside the building she could see a handful of motorcycles, and two pickup trucks. There were no signs or decals to announce it was home to the Cottonmouths MCC, but she didn’t require them.
Dust devils played across the tracks.
A speedboat whined along the Intracoastal Waterway, its outboard motor working hard as it pushed upstream, but from where they sat they had no view of its progress. Birds squawked and wheeled in the sky and one of them offered a fishy deposit that splattered down the Honda’s windshield. ‘Hopefully that’s a good omen,’ Po said.
Tess spuriously eyed the bird crap dribbling down the windshield. How could getting crapped on by a bird be good luck? Strange superstition, she thought.
‘How do you want to play things?’ Po finally ventured.
‘You could always run in, smash all the windows, and drag Wynne out by the hair.’ She offered a wry twist of her mouth. ‘That’s supposing he’s even inside.’
‘He probably isn’t. But we have to find out.’ Po unbuckled his belt and got out the car. He opened the back door, felt under the seats, and drew out their guns – hastily concealed there before the police arrived at the scene of the crash at Baton Rouge. He handed Tess’s Glock between the front seats, and she hurriedly inspected it before shoving it away in her purse. Leaning inside the Honda, Po disdained the shoulder holster this time and merely pushed his gun into his waistband and covered it with his shirt. ‘You ready, Tess?’
‘We’re just going to walk on over there?’
‘Yes, unless you want those hard-asses laughing at us when we drive this chicken shack through the gates.’ He nodded towards the motorcycle clubhouse. ‘I don’t see too many minivans in that lot.’
‘What if we need a quick getaway?’
‘And you’d rely on this heap?’
‘Fair point.’ Tess got out the Honda, adjusting her sticky clothing with a quick shrug and dance. She slung her purse over her shoulder, in easy reach should the need to delve inside for her gun arise. Birds still wheeled and squawked, and Tess dodged away before her clothing earned decorations she could do without. Good luck, my ass.
They crossed the railway tracks. Tess could smell the heat. It wasn’t damp as before, but gritty and tasted like creosote on her tongue. Beads of sweat rolled from under her hairline and trickled down her cheeks. She swiped at them distractedly. By comparison, Po walked as though untroubled. It was a front. There was tenseness in his frame she hadn’t noted before. He was checking for observers, expecting ambush, and preparing for the worst.