Fat Tuesday (37 page)

He slumped backward against the wall, closed his eyes, and, moaning, rolled his head from side to side. The nightmare continued.

rain had slacked off, but dark, sulky clouds formed a low ceiling over the bayou. Remy stood in the open doorway of the shack and watched Basile lower the boat, bow first, into the water.

He'd patched the bullet holes with materials stored in a deep wooden box that stood against an exterior wall. From what she could tell, he had used a pitchlike substance and duct tape. The crude repair job also had required extensive crude swearing, but obviously it had worked because the boat remained afloat. He tethered it to the pier.

"Is it watertight?" she asked as he approached the shack.

"I might get there without sinking."

"Where?"

"Dredd's."

"When?"

"In the morning. If the rain clears out. Could you fetch me a towel?

If I go in like this I'll track water all over the floor."

He'd worked stubbornly and steadily throughout the day in a drenching rain without any protective gear. His jeans and shirt were soaked through. He took the towel from her with a laconic "Thanks," then retreated around the corner to wash up. When he reappeared a few minutes later, the towel was wrapped around his waist. Saying nothing, he took a change of clothing with him into the bathroom.

His shoulders, she noticed, were sprinkled with freckles.

When he came out of the bathroom, he motioned toward the table.

"What's that?"

"Supper." Using what was available, she had laid out two place settings. She'd even found a candle in one of the drawers where cooking utensils were stored. It was standing in a pool of its own wax on a cracked saucer, but it softened the rusticity of the shack "It's just chili and beans, but I thought you'd be hungry since you didn't eat lunch."

"Yeah. Fine."

He sat down and she served the meal. A box of crackers and bottled water rounded out their menu. They ate in silence for several minutes.

He was the first to speak."Not quite what you're used to."

She lowered her spoon to her bowl and gazed around the single room. It was furnished with mismatched castoffs, warmed by a space heater, lighted by a Coleman lantern, but it was snug and dry, a sanctuary from the hostile terrain."No, it's not what I'm used to but I like it.

Maybe because it's so different from anything I've seen before."

"Didn't a Cajun beau ever take you to his fishing camp on a date?"

"I never went on a date, and I didn't have any beaux." She nibbled the corner off a saltine, then laid it on the rim of her bowl and reached for her glass of water. Catching his eye, she wondered at his astonishment."What?"

"You never went on a date?"

"Not unless you count Pinkie. I went straight from life with my mother, to Blessed Heart, to Pinkie's house. Not much opportunity for boyfriends. I didn't even attend the school-sponsored dances."

"How come?"

"I lived with Angel in a one-room apartment," she said quietly.

"My impression of men wasn't very favorable. I had no desire to go to dances. Even if I had, Pinkie wouldn't have permitted it."

They lapsed into another silence, broken only by their spoons clinking against the crockery bowls. Finally he said, "Did you ever consider becoming a nun?"

The question amused her, she laughed softly."No. Pinkie had other plans."

"The payback."

"I guess you could call it that. He married me the night after I graduated."

"No college?"

"I wanted to go, but Pinkie wouldn't allow it."

"Pinkie wouldn't have permitted it. Pinkie had other plans. Pinkie wouldn't allow it." Taking umbrage at his tone, she said, "You don't understand."

"No, I don't."

"I'm not ignorant. I took every college course by correspondence that was offered."

"I don't think you're ignorant."

"Yes you do. Your low opinion of me is all too obvious, Mr. Basile."

Looking ready to argue, he changed his mind, shrugged, and said, "It's none of my business. I just can't understand how a person, man or woman, turns their life over to someone else and says, Here, run this for me, will you?" Didn't you ever make an independent decision?"

"Yes. I once defied Pinkie's wishes and secretly applied for a job in an art gallery. I had studied art, I loved it, and during my interview I conveyed my appreciation and knowledge to the owner of the gallery.

He hired me. It lasted two days."

"What happened?"

"The gallery was burned to the ground. The building and everything in it was completely destroyed." She looked at him meaningfully."They never caught the arsonist, but I never applied for another job, either."

No longer eating, he sat with his elbows on the table, clasped hands covering his mouth, staring at her over the ridge of his knuckles.

There was a sprinkling of freckles across his cheekbones, too, she noticed.

His eyes weren't brown, as she'd previously thought, but green, so deeply green they appeared brown unless one looked very closely.

"Would you like some more?"

At first he seemed not to understand the question, then he glanced down at his empty bowl."Uh, please."

He ate his second portion in silence.

When he was finished, she began clearing the table. He offered to wash the dishes and she let him. She dried.

"I've never met anyone like you," he said."This morning you practically begged me to return you to your husband, when it sounds to me like Duvall defines emotional abuse. You're like a prisoner in your own home. You make none of the decisions. Your opinion doesn't count even where your own future is concerned. You're nothing except Duvall's possession, something he shows off."

"Like his orchids."

"Orchids?"

"He spends hours in his greenhouse cultivating orchids."

"You're kidding."

"No. But that's irrelevant. Please, finish your thought."

"My thought? I guess it doesn't bother you to be no more than a possession when you think of all you get in return. Fancy clothes Jewelry. A limousine and driver. Like mother, like daughter. You just charge more than Angel."

If he had slapped her, it couldn't have stung more. Throwing down the dish towel, she turned away, but one of his wet hands shot out and caught her by the wrist."Let go of me."

"You sold yourself body and soul to Pinkie Duvall, and you feel that because your mother was a drug-addicted whore your decision was justified. Well, it doesn't wash, Mrs. Duvall. Kids can't choose their parents or the circumstances of their upbringing, but as adults, we have choices."

"Do we?"

"You disagree?"

"Maybe your choices were more clear-cut than mine, Mr. Basile."

"Oh, I think your choice was very easy. If I was a beautiful and desirable young woman, I might peddle myself to the highest bidder, too.

"

"Do you think so?"

"I might."

"No, I mean do you think I'm beautiful and desirable?"

Looking like he'd taken a clip on the chin, he released her wrist. But even though they were no longer touching, he held her with his stare.

After a time, he said, "Yeah, I do. Furthermore, you know I do. You use your sexuality like currency, and every man you meet wants to cash in, from a crusty old curmudgeon like Dredd to that stammering guy in the French Market who sold you the oranges."

Her lips parted in wordless surprise.

"That was me in the baseball cap, running after you with a goddamn sack of oranges," he said, sounding angry."I was spying on you then, and I was spying the night you had your little tryst with Bardo in the gazebo."

"I did not have a tryst with Bardo. Not that night or any other time.

He makes my skin crawl."

"That's not what it looked like to me."

"You're so self-righteous and quick to judge, which I find surprising since you of all people should know that things aren't always what they appear. You should know how extenuating circumstances can shade a situation."

He advanced on her a step."The hell you talking about?"

"You killed your partner. You fired the gun that caused his death.

Technically that's what happened. But judgments based on that fact alone would be unfair to you. Because there were contributing factors.

When taken into account, those factors exonerate you."

"Okay. So?"

"So, until you know all the circumstances of my life, how dare you preach to me about choices."

"Mrs. Duvall?" he said calmly.

"What?"

"Have you ever yelled at your husband like this?" The unexpected question, and the calm manner in which he posed it, took her off guard.

His eyebrows went up."No? Well, maybe you should. Maybe he'd stop burning down buildings if you ever said How dare you' to him and threatened to leave."

"Leave?" she exclaimed on a bitter laugh."What a brilliant idea, Mr. Basile! Why didn't I think of that? Why didn't I "

"Shh!" He stepped up to her, placed one arm around her waist and the other hand over her mouth. She tried to wiggle free, but he increased the pressure of his arm, squeezing her waist tighter."Shh!"

Then she heard the noise that he had picked up seconds earlier. It sounded like a trolling motor.

"Since you don't know who it is," he said in a low voice, "I advise you to keep quiet."

Remembering the men who had chased them from the Crossroads, she nodded in understanding. He released her."Get the candle." She blew it out as he reached for the lantern, turning it down to barely a glow."Stay out of sight."

Placing his hand on the top of her head, as he had done in the boat when the helicopter flew over, he pushed her down and motioned her under the table. She crawled beneath it.

As nimble as a shadow, he moved to the cabinet and she watched him take the pistol from behind the top shelf. That was about the only place she hadn't searched for the gun today while he was busy with the boat.

He tucked the pistol into the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back, then went to stand on the pier just outside the door.

The sound of the motor grew louder. Soon a light appeared, flickering through the moss-draped branches and casting a faint apron of light on the rippling surface of the water in advance of the approaching boat.

She could see enough to discern that it was approximately the size of the craft Basile had repaired that day.

A man called out to him in Cajun French. He responded with a laconic "Evening, y'all."

Remy felt the vibration when the boat pulled up alongside the pier and bumped into one of the rubber-tire buffers on the piles. On hands and knees she crawled from beneath the table and across the room to the window that afforded her a better view. She raised her head only far enough for her eyes to clear the windowsill. There were three men huddled in the boat.

She didn't know whether to reveal herself and alert them that she was a captive, or to remain hidden. She desperately needed to return to New Orleans, but would these men provide her safe passage? Or was she safer with Basile?

While debating what to do, Basile asked them if the fish were biting.

So they weren't lawmen. Or was Basile tricking her into thinking they weren't?

She took another clandestine peek. The men were barely distinguishable in the pale light, but there was nothing in their rough appearance to distinguish them as law enforcement officers, nor were there any official insignias on their boat.

In English, the spokesman of the group told Burke that they weren't on a fishing expedition."We're looking for someone. A priest."

"Just any ol' priest or one in particular?" Basile kept his tone light, but Remy knew the friendliness was counterfeit.

"This priest, Father Gregory, we think maybe he was in trouble.

Who knows?" She detected the Gallic shrug behind the Cajun's words.

"If he has enemies, we don't want any trouble from them."

"What made you think he might have enemies?"

Basile listened to the man's tale without comment. When he finished, Basile said, "Lost in the swamp? Poor fool. In any event, nobody's been by this way since I got here several days ago."

The three men in the boat held a whispered consultation, then the spokesman thanked Burke, bade him good night, and they pushed off.

Turning the boat around, they started back the way they'd come.

Remy considered charging through the door and calling out to them but decided against it. What about them had frightened Father Gregory more than the perils of the swamp? He must have had a compelling reason not to trust them.

Or had he feared only that they would turn him over to the authorities?

She stood up and ran toward the door, but Basile was there to block her."You can scream and they'll come back," he said in a low, urgent voice, "but you have no guarantee that they won't hurt you."

"What guarantee do I have that you won't?"

"Have I so far?"

She couldn't see his eyes, but she felt their intensity, and she knew he was right. Her safety was reduced to choosing the devil she knew.

Sensing her decision, he crossed the room and extinguished the lantern, plunging the shack into total darkness."Just in case they're around the bend watching," he said.

"What do you think happened to Father Gregory after he sneaked away from the wedding?" she whispered.

"God knows. But at least I know he made it that far."

Gregory had resigned himself to dying soon.

He wouldn't receive the death penalty for the role he'd played in the kidnapping, but he wouldn't last long in prison. Guys like him were prey, and they were outnumbered by predators. In a cell block, his life span might be a couple of months. But after even that amount of time, death would be a welcome release.

He cowered in the backseat of the unmarked police car, his heart tripping crazily. But, surprisingly, they weren't heading toward the Vieux Carre station."Are you taking me uptown?" The arresting officers ignored him and continued their conversation about their upcoming Mardi Gras party plans.

When they passed police headquarters without even slowing down, Gregory's terror went into overdrive."Where are you taking me?"