All the Devil's Creatures (12 page)

Geoff scowled to himself. “No, that’s a new Eileenism. She was really in a mood.” He hesitated, then let the story come forth on its own accord. Such sincere words required no conjuring. “We were an item once, a long time ago, back in college.”
Christ, was it nearly twenty years ago?
“We were both engineering majors—environmental engineering. They called us the hippies of the department even though, compared to most the liberal arts types, we were downright lame. She was one of the few girls in engineering of any type—had that cute, nerdy look.”
Staying in bed all afternoon, smoking cigarettes and listening to the indie rock tapes they hunted and treasured like dark painted misshapen Easter eggs only they appreciated, the more obscure the label the better.
“We grew up, but stayed friends. She was at my wedding, got along fine with Janie, my wife. They were polar opposites. I guess that’s why.”

Geoff turned quiet, feeling the darkness threaten to return, knowing from experience that talk could only keep it at bay for so long.

“I’m sorry if I sounded cold about her. I have a suspicious mind.”

“Don’t worry about it. If I’d hired a credulous P.I., I’d want my money back. Anyway, things have been tense between us.” He looked over long enough to meet her dark eyes. “After Janie died, right after I started working again, I went down to New Orleans for an appeal. I was dazed and numb and pretty much worthless. Eileen was married to a junkie musician, and it was falling apart. We met for a drink in the Quarter and, well …”

“Two hurt people. It happens.”

“Yeah.” Geoff almost shuddered at the memory of waking up entangled and hung over in Eileen’s damn Lakeview ranch style, the smell of her boy-toy itinerant husband still on the sheets. Toxic sweat and cigarettes. “We didn’t make the smart move. Should have laughed it off as a silly mistake. Instead, we tried to make something of it. A two-month fuck-a-thon.” He sensed Marisol start but kept his eyes on the road. “I guess … I guess I was trying to convince myself that my old life had been a mistake, was no great loss, that I’d belonged with Eileen all along. Stupid. Anyway, when our heads cleared …”
Loop of guilt and grief, a month of crushing despair…

Marisol turned toward him in the seat, patted his right thigh. He was glad not to finish the thought. “Okay. It might be a good idea for you to talk to Eileen alone. But anyway, like you said—I’ll probably be out of that part. I’ll meet Willie, and we’ll keep track of the murder investigation.”

“Right.”

Geoff turned off the interstate to cut across the Acadiana Trail to Opelousas and I-49 up to Shreveport. They would be at the lake in just over three hours. He fiddled with the radio and lighted on an NPR affiliate out of Lafayette. The hourly news roundup: Flooding along the Danube. A major rail accident in Tokyo. More deaths in Iraq. Geoff zoned out. Until the announcer said: “And arrests have been made in an alleged racially motivated murder that has brought nation-wide attention to an East Texas lakeside hamlet. Sheriff John Seastrunk brought twin brothers Wayne and Duane Tatum into custody at just past ten this morning … there have been reports that the brothers intend to plead guilty …”

Smiling for the first time that day, Geoff said, “Now how about that, Marisol—it’s over!”

J
immy Lee Monroe lay on his couch drinking beer and flipping through the satellite TV stations. He avoided the news channels. He had pushed from his mind what he did. What he had promised to do next. He could stomach no reminders.

No use. He paused on a cop show. The longer he watched, the more the plot began to cut through the boozy foam around his brain faster than he could replenish it. Until he worked himself into a panic.

The lawyer on the show explained the finer points of the law of conspiracy. Explained that any member of a conspiracy to commit murder could be guilty of murder—and subject to the same punishment—even if he didn’t pull the trigger.

And Jimmy Lee knew that for him, that meant lethal injection.

The simmering doubts he had about the Speaker and his promises boiled over. He got up from the couch, turned off the TV, cranked up some metal on his clunky old stereo and reached for his bong to settle his mind.

We was drunk. Started jokin bout scarin the shit outa some niggers, like they used to do in the Klan days. I don’t remember how it happened, but before I knew it, we had that girl in the truck. I thought we was just gonna have some fun with her, but the twins went nuts. We was on the bayou. I shoulda made em stop. I’m so sorry, sorry sorry …

This was to be his story. He would turn himself in and rat out the idiot twins. The DA would cut him a deal, and the Tatums would go to death row.

Now the town was up in arms, rabble-rousing colored preacher leading rallies. All over the national news. Twins already in the pokey; too late to turn them in. Stupid to think he could get off with just a few years. He would be sitting on death row in Huntsville, right along with Wayne and Duane.

The Shadow People
—they had put him up to it. Through the Speaker. Jimmy Lee had seen that strange crew once gathered at the Speaker’s country estate. The foreigners, the old men, the ancient woman—he had seen them whispering with his boss through a part in the double doors to the great man’s study. Before they had shut him out.

Then the order had come down.

Unless … there was no order; there were no Shadow People. Where had he gotten the idea to egg the twins on?
Just another ignorant notion, Jimmy Lee. You and your fool ideas
, Momma had said in the years after Daddy went away.
It’ll be a miracle if I don’t grow old alone with you dead or in prison.

The fear and confusion enveloped him like a jaundiced haze. The Speaker had promised nothing, knew nothing. Except …

The thought of the Speaker betraying him crushed Jimmy Lee’s heart. So he himself must be wrong—
you’re always wrong, Jimmy Lee. You’re worthless.
Who had said that? His mother, his father? He could not remember. Surely not the Speaker. The Speaker loved him like a son.

But Jimmy Lee knew how fathers could treat their sons.

Before, Jimmy Lee figured he would do anything for the Speaker. He scared off voters in colored-town. Took bags of money from foreign businessmen in dark alleys.
Gave
bags of money to mobbed up Miami types from the underbelly of the telecom industry to fund robo-calls against Duchamp’s opponents. Ruined some of those opponents’ careers and marriages with whisper campaigns of mixed race babies and homosexuality.

But the Speaker’s gone too far. He’s turned on me, betrayed me. Just like Momma always did when Daddy … was in a mood. And before this is over, the Speaker will see me dying a slow death in Huntsville, or a fast one in the swamp. Ain’t no other way.

Unless. Jimmy Lee decided it was time. He took the Glock he had purchased at a traveling gun show from its lock box and made sure it was loaded. Not yet dawn, Saturday morning. He could be in Dallas by nine.

•

The town car pulled into the service entrance off the alley that wound along the creek behind the Duchamp home at 8:15. The Speaker got into the back seat wearing a dark suit and red tie—the old Congressional uniform. His shirt already felt sticky with the sweat from his body. The driver was anonymous through the tinted partition. A cell phone rang in a holder attached to the seat before him, as always. Unknown Caller. He answered, punched in the code, hung up, replaced the phone. The moistness from his palm left a dark smear on the hand set that faded little by little.

They entered the Tollway off Walnut Hill, heading south. Ten minutes later they took the final ramp and drove into downtown. The driver pulled into the garage of a dreary office building at the awkward age between prime commercial space and condo conversion. As they parked near an elevator, the phone chirped. A text: “Ste 1933.” Duchamp pocketed the phone and went up.

His black Oxfords clacked on the bare institutional tile of the empty florescent-lit corridor. The building’s frigid air conditioner dried the sweat on his body but his palms remained damp. His bowels felt loose. He found the suite. A key pad waited next to the double glass doors. Another text chirped through; the Congressman read the code: “8094. Conf. Rm C.”

In the conference room, the Group gathered—four men and one woman. The view was of glimmering glass office towers.

“Hello, son,” said the oldest of the men with a twangy Houston drawl.
The Oilman
. Friend of his father. Patron. Lord. “Sit.” He gestured to the head of the table. Duchamp sat.

A dapper man stood at the north window, back to the room.
The Patrician
. An even older friend of Duchamp’s family. Their grandfathers were rumrunners together in New England during prohibition. Their fathers had worked the danker Washington back channels for decades, scoring the occasional ambassadorship or White House gig. And the sons—as adults to be known in the Group only as the Congressman and the Patrician—had attended the same East Coast schools, earning gentlemen’s C’s and avoiding the draft.

Next to Duchamp sat an aging brute in a linen suit. White African. Former mercenary.
The Rhodesian
.

Across the table sat a tiny, weathered woman:
the Dame
. Widow of his own wife’s uncle. Ancient scion of one of the great South Texas ranching empires, able to trace her lineage to both the Spanish Conquistadores and the Old Three Hundred, the original Anglo settlers of Texas.

Beside her, as if she were a dying matriarch and he her charge, the loyal keeper of her patrimony, sat a youthful and stylish man.
The Prince
. He looked like a star of the Italian cinema. In fact, he was the favorite son of an oil-rich sheik. Eton and Oxford-educated, he had taken over his late father’s leadership role in the Group—second in command—upon the old man’s death a decade before.

The meeting came to order with a series of sideways glances.

After taking his seat, the Patrician in the finishing school diction of their youth, said, “Good to see you as always, Congressman.” Not even the old friends would address each other by name in this setting.

The others murmured and nodded, and then the Prince said, “You know why we’re here. The Doctor is concerned.”

“And I’ve already taken care of it. Y’all know that.” Duchamp resented the little twerp, the Group’s only link to its brilliant and visionary leader, the reclusive Doctor, for the past five years.

“No, son.” The Oilman’s look brought Duchamp a flashback of his father. Sad disappointment. “She—”

“She got inside, Congressman,” said the Prince.

At the interruption, the Oilman shut up and stared at his hands. Duchamp seethed with rage at the Arab’s petulance.
This little prick’s not fit to lick the sand from his old man’s sandals.
He said, “Now how could she have? That’s plain impossible; even we don’t know how to get inside.”

“It doesn’t matter how. She got in. And she wasn’t working alone. With the project imminently coming to fruition, we must staunch any potential for future leaks.”

The Dame said, “The Doctor’s life’s work.”

The Rhodesian said, “Humanity’s last great hope.”

“I get it,” Duchamp said, exasperated. “You tell me what’s going on, what needs to be done, and I’ll handle it.”

The Dame pounded her fist—overlarge for her slight and withered frame—on the table. “No, I don’t think you do get it, fool. The bitch stole one! One of
them
.”

•

The car dropped Duchamp off at the rear entrance before ten a.m. Kathleen sat in wait at the kitchen table. “That man’s here.”

Christ, now what?
“What man?”

“
Your
man. Your old Jack-of-all-trades.”

Duchamp tried to hide his shock. “When did he get here?”

“About twenty minutes after you left. I made him pull around back. His truck is in the garage. He’s waiting in your study. And Robert—”

“Gotta take care of this, Blueberry.” He kissed Kathleen on the top of her head and turned to leave.

“Robert, look at me.”

He met her dark and angry gaze and his guts dropped.

“Darlin—”

“You swore to me. You swore it was finished.”

“It is.” He struggled to keep his voice steady. “I’m just going to kick the son-of-a-bitch out.”

•

Jimmy Lee sat in the Speaker’s study, sweaty and angry. He cradled the Glock. He could feel his heart beat fast like a rabbit’s.
Son of a bitch son of a bitch son of a bitch. Don’t owe him shit. And don’t mind shooting his stuck up cunt of a wife if it comes to that, either.

He looked down and saw he still wore the faded black Pantera t-shirt he’d put on the morning before. His jeans were as greasy as his stringy black hair.
Been up too long, gotta slow down there, son, gotta take it easy.
He stood up and paced a quick, jerky path around the room and sat back down and bobbed his head.

The Speaker bounded in with his trademark perfect smile, arms outstretched. “Jimmy Lee! Am I glad to see you, boy. We ready to straighten up this little mess?”

Jimmy Lee felt a moment’s fear. A moment of pushback at the force of the Speaker’s power. A moment’s love. But he stood up and raised the gun, and he said: “Don’t come one step closer, Speaker.”

The Speaker bent his arms at the elbow to give a hands up gesture. “Now what’s this all about, Jimmy Lee? You high?”

“You know what it’s about. It’s about the Shadow People.”

“You’re sounding crazy now, son, so just—”

“And if I’m gonna die in jail, I’m taking you with me. So I reckon you’d better get me a million dollars and a ticket south of the border. Today.”

“Now calm down, son. You know it’s not that simple.”

“Yes, it is.” He gestured with the handgun. “And I can make it even simpler.”

The Speaker lowered his arms. His face fell to an expression of pity and sorrow. “Jimmy Lee. You know I love you. This isn’t the way to do this.”