“How you doin’, Roulin?”
“Aw, Doc, I'm okay. I ain't got a boat but I coulda drowned out there. So at least I'm still kickin’. And I'm still mad as hell.”
Duck Landrieu patted his friend Roulin Lasseine on the back as they walked down a quiet street a block from the Chacahoula Parish Courthouse. “That's great, Roulin,” he said. “Stay mad. We may need your righteous indignation in court soon.”
A lanky, bespectacled man walked beside them.
“Roulin, you know Gary Harmon, right?” said Landrieu. “If not, you should get to know him. He's your lawyer. Gary, this is the podnah I was telling you about.”
Lasseine, a rangy, dark man with piercing brown eyes, sharp cheekbones, and a prominent, finely chiseled nose that proclaimed his Native American heritage, could only smile at the Doc. There were two things about the Doc you had to get used to: his abrupt, take-charge nature and his generosity. Roulin didn't even ask how he was supposed to be able to pay for a lawyer, especially now that his chief source of income lay at the bottom of a bayou. The Doc wouldn't answer such a question anyway.
The Doc continued. “I've just enlisted Gary, so I've been trying to catch him up on you. Roulin's a shrimper—one of the best, by the way. He lives down at Daw-Dawville at the Bayou Go-to-Hell junction and was the guy I asked to check out the chemical-spill report when it first came in. For his trouble later that night, he got run down by a big-ass crewboat running dark—it sank his boat and damned near drowned him but never even slowed down. But the good news is that he not only survived but he rode out the night on a barrel, which rolled off the mystery boat during the collision. We now have good reason to believe that the boat was carrying many, many such barrels filled with toxic wastes to the dumping site back of Belle Chaoui. We owe what we know about this case to Roulin's misfortune. Now, Roulin, I'm counting on Gary here to turn your misfortune into fortune while helping out our cause.”
Lasseine studied his attorney. “You look familiar,” Roulin said to Harmon, extending a hand. “Maybe we met at the Corps hearing on the shipping channel?”
Harmon smiled. “Right. I was the lawyer for the umbrella of duck-hunting and fishing outfits.”
“Aw, sure,” Roulin replied. “Us shrimpers were happy to finally have some sportsmen on our side. Now, if you ax me, we're probably all gonna get our asses kicked. I ain't no lawyer, but seems to me that the feds and the oilies had that whole thing rigged.”
“It's a good chance they did,” said Harmon, “but like Dr. Duck says, it ain't over till the skinny lawyers sue. We think we might have the mighty Corps of Engineers on a couple of procedural issues. If we can just slow 'em down a bit in court, we might then turn the politics in our favor.”
Roulin looked at Landrieu and smiled. “The boy's an optimist, ain't he, Doc? Where the hell did you find an environmental optimist in Chacahoula Parish?”
Landrieu laughed. “Gary's like me. He's too dumb and stubborn to be intimidated by the bastards or scared off by the odds. Anyway, I think you're gonna like what your lawyer has to tell you.”
The men walked in silence for five minutes, passing an empty café and crossing a square where rose Saint Martin's, the impressive turn-of-thecentury brick-and-stone Catholic cathedral, until they reached a tidy white clapboard house with a wraparound porch. It was late morning and most of the downtown Black Bayou working folk were tucked into their offices.
“This way,” said Harmon as he turned and walked up broad, planked wooden steps.
Roulin noticed a shingle, hung on a wrought-iron post, that said moreaux & harmon, attorneys-at-law. They clopped up the steps and across the wooden porch and entered a long carpeted hallway till they got to a door with Harmon's name on it. Harmon invited them to sit on a comfortably worn black leather couch fronted by a broad cypress coffee table with a wooden duck decoy on it. He slid into a high-backed black leather chair on the other side.
“So, here's the deal,” Landrieu said after everyone had settled in. “I and others have been exploring the very real possibility that Black Bayou's most notorious business owner, B.J. Duplessis, is up to something nasty with the equally notorious oil big shot Tom Huff. Furthermore, I think it's directly related to the little incident that landed you in the drink.”
“You serious?” asked Roulin.
“Real serious,” Landrieu replied. “Your lifesaver, that barrel, has turned out to be the key. We got it brought back here and were able to do a little detective work on it.”
“Like what?”
“We've had a sample from the barrel analyzed, and it matches up exactly with some chemical samples we were able to get—with a little help from some podnahs of ours—from the dump site itself. We're talking mostly diesel-based drilling mud with some other charmingly toxic wastes thrown in. Even some radioactives. Now and then, some really bad shit comes up with the drill bit.”
“Damn, that's ugly. But what's the link to the bad guys?” said Roulin.
“A couple of things,” Landrieu replied. “Turns out drilling-mud formulas are proprietary—a precise chemical stew that's kinda like DNA. They leave a singular molecular footprint. And the stuff we've had analyzed so far is the very stuff Big Tex uses on all of its wells in this region. Nobody else uses anything like it. Then there's the barrel itself. There were no obvious markings on it, but upon close examination we found a strange application of black spray paint to a section of the bottom. Once we'd removed that paint, we found a serial number and manufacturer's name. It gets kinda complicated, but essentially we've traced the barrel to a batch sold to Big Tex a couple of years ago.”
“Okay, that's all good,” replied Lasseine. “But what's the Duplessis connection?”
“We have grave suspicions, but we don't have rock-solid proof yet,” said Landrieu. “Some podnahs are working on that. The truth is, Roulin, the less you know about this the better. This business could get real nasty before it's over, given the cast of characters were dealing with. Meanwhile, the EPA's already down here doing their thing. But they're bureaucrats and they move real, real slow.”
“So, what do you want me to do?”
“Gary here is gonna take a statement from you. It's called an affidavit, and it simply will put down in writing what happened to you that night and what you saw. It'll be part of our little package to the EPA, not to mention that it'll be useful in any civil suit Gary files on your behalf against the perpetrators who ran you down. You all right with doing this?”
“All right? You can have all the statements you want. And, yeah, let's sue the bastards. It would be nice to get a new boat outta this.”
“Well, Roulin,” said Harmon, “if we can actually pin this to Duplessis and Huff, we're talking about being able to sue some very, very deep pockets. We're talking about criminal negligence. We're talking about possible punitive damages. Hell, a boat? We might be able to get you a six-pack of boats.”
Lasseine laughed. “Aw, man, one boat's trouble enough. But I've got plenty of ways to spend money if I ever got my hands on any. My ole lady is always on my ass to get out of that damned raggedy-ass trailer we live in, and I could use a truck that don't burn five quarts of oil a week.”
Duck Landrieu nodded. “Okay, Roulin, Gary will take your statement. Meanwhile, Except for Gary and me, I wouldn't be talking to anybody else about this.”
“No problem,” Roulin replied. “Besides, I got plenty to do. Without my boat I've got some slack time, so I'm takin’ up a new hobby.”
“And what might that be?” asked Dr. Duck.
“Swimmin’ lessons,” said Roulin.