Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 15 - The Mona Lisa Murders (9 page)

Despite the hot morning sun, I shivered and curled my nose at the stench rising from the flooded city. I would have paid a hundred bucks for a shower to wash off the gunk and slime that still clung to my jeans.

The somber little Melungeon poured us some coffee from his thermos. Back south of us, a search and rescue craft turned our way.

Edmund quickly pulled out a can of paint and sprayed an orange X on the outside wall of the terminal. In the bottom V of the X, he sprayed a zero, indicating no bodies inside. One of the men in the oncoming boat waved, and it swerved down a flooded street to the first house.

‘Them, they think we search station for survivors.’

Latasha frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘The X, that mean building, it has been searched. That there be no dead ones inside.’ He started the engine. ‘Now we go.’

I frowned at him. ‘Go where?’

He nodded to Latasha. ‘Little
cher
, she say she have key at her hotel.
Oui
? We go there.’

I indicated the tool chest. ‘With the right tools, maybe I could break into the locker.’

‘Too long,’ he said, backing the Marlin around. ‘Stay here too long, we draw attention. Best we go to Metairie.’

‘But the mailboxes are on the first floor. It’s flooded.’

Edmund shrugged. ‘Us, we don’t know nothing for sure until we see it. That be right?’

I looked at her. She gave me a lopsided grin. ‘I suppose so.’

He laid a gnarled hand on the console of the rescue craft. ‘Us, we got transportation and time. Carl, he wait for us with car. Don’t worry.’ He reached under the console and pulled out a bottle of Old Crow whiskey and chugged several swallows. When he finished, he wiped the back of his hand across his lips. ‘Me, I finish what I start, and I start out this morning to pick up that package and take you to meet my brother, Carl. That’s what I plan to do.’

He offered me the Old Crow. I hesitated, then shrugged. Why not? We had a long day ahead of us.

He lit a cigarette and offered one to Latasha.

She glanced at the devastation around us, then snatched the cigarette and grabbed the bottle from me. ‘I need both.’

We headed north on Jefferson Parkway then turned west on Ramirez Boulevard. I had a fair idea of our location for I could see the skyline of the city off to the southwest, but Edmund knew exactly where he was heading.

Numerous search and rescue craft plied the flooded streets, loading stranded citizens into their small craft and transporting them to various refugee centers around the city. We were in an alien world, one beyond comprehension. We rode in silence, transfixed by the massive destruction around us, destruction so overwhelming that the object of our goal paled in comparison.

Latasha must have felt the same for she laid a hand on her cousin’s arm. ‘Edmund. Can’t we do something to help these poor people? Take some of them to a refugee center or something.’

I understood her feelings, but we were still in danger ourselves. With the hundreds of rescue boats criss-crossing paths, there was no way to know which one or ones might hold the bozos who had been pursuing us.

Edmund glanced at me, then smiled at her. In a soothing tone, he said. ‘Look, little
cher,
me, I know how you feel. But you gots to understand we don’t got the time.’

We continued west on Ramirez, running slowly to keep from making waves. Most of the homes and businesses were deserted, but from time to time, a face appeared, hands waved.

Edmund stood stoically at the console, his eyes fastened on the watery path ahead. We were approaching the Harbor Navigation Canal when Latasha shouted. ‘Stop! Stop!’

I glanced in the direction she pointed.

A woman with a baby in her arms sat on a rooftop. Two small boys crouched at her side.

Her eyes filled with compassion, she said. ‘We can’t leave them up there.’

Edmund and I locked eyes. A faint grin curled one side of his lips when he saw the pleading in my eyes. ‘
Oui.
We help.’

Edging up to the eave of the house, Edmund held the Marlin steady while Latasha and I helped the young woman and her children into the boat. Tears filled her eyes as she thanked us.

Latasha glanced up at me and smiled.

I grinned. ‘Feel better?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Me too.’

The young mother, Angelique Jefferson, couldn’t have been more than sixteen. Anguish twisted her dusky face ‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘Next door. My Mama. She be old and feeble. She don’t answer when I call.’

Edmund eased the Marlin to the next house, stopping at an open window. Angelique rose and handed the baby to Latasha, but I stopped her. ‘No. You stay here. I’ll look.’

I wasn’t anxious to get back in that water even if it were only knee-deep, but the look of gratitude on the young woman’s face filled me with the strength to take on anything I met in there; however, I would draw a line at that six-foot alligator back at the bus station.

I climbed through the window.

Chapter Fifteen

The house was in shambles; the stench of rotting vegetation and mildew gagged me; various household items floated past.

Behind me, Angelique called out. ‘Mama’s room be to the right.’

The door was closed. I tried to open it, but it resisted. With a grunt, I threw my shoulder against it. It budged a couple inches. I shoved again. This time it opened all the way.

I froze, staring at the motionless figure on the bed. Angelique’s mother. She was dead. I studied her a moment, her wrinkled black face seemed somehow peaceful.

‘You find her?’ Latasha shouted.

Quickly, I pulled the sheets and blankets over her frail body like a mummy, then sloshed back to the window. Angelique was waiting. I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry. She’s gone.’

She nodded slowly. ‘Me, I think that when she don’t answer.’

Her two little boys stared up at me, the whites of their eyes in sharp contrast to their blue-black skin.

I looked at Edmund. ‘I wrapped her up in blankets. We need to leave her name for the ones who pick her up.’

On a brown paper bag, Angelique wrote her mother’s name, her own, and the telephone numbers of relatives.

Back inside, I unwrapped the body and placed the paper over her chest, then bundled her up again. I stared at her for a moment, filled with an almost overwhelming mixture of compassion and anger; compassion for the wizened old soul before me and anger at the cold indifference of Mother Nature.

‘Hurry yourself, Boudreaux,’ Edmund shouted. ‘We gots to go.’

Outside, Edmund had sprayed an X and in the bottom V, placed the number one, indicating a dead body inside.

I’ve got to hand it to Edmund. He had the gall of a professional Texas Holdem Poker player. He fell in line behind other rescue crafts. The only problem was that the procession was heading north to the refugee center at Loop 610 and I-10.

I sidled up beside Edmund and whispered. ‘A bit out of our way, huh?’

He grinned up at me. ‘Not to worry, Boudreaux. Like I say, me, I be the best pilot on the Big Muddy. We make it. Edmund Benoit, he promise that.’

He was as good as his word. Of course, the fact that there was mass confusion at the refugee drop-off helped.

The unloading area was an access ramp to Interstate 10 near the intersection of the two highways. Over two dozen rescue craft waited their turn to unload their refugees.

The hair on the back of my neck bristled when we pulled up at the tail end of the offloading queue. I scanned the boats ahead of us, searching for any eyes that might be paying us particular attention.

Latasha came up behind me. ‘What?’

‘Just looking. Can’t be too careful.’

‘They couldn’t have followed us up here, could they?’

I looked down at her. ‘They followed you all the way from Miami.’

Three abreast, rescue craft offloaded their passengers at the ramp, then backed out, making room for the waiting boats. At least a couple dozen volunteers assisted with the unloading and directing frightened and weary New Orleanians to transportation.

Angelique hugged us tightly and thanked us profusely when we dropped them off at the ramp.

One of the volunteers stretched over the gunwale and picked up one of the little boys. His shirtsleeve slipped up. I froze, then quickly cut my eyes from the black octopus on his forearm.

I turned to Edmund. In a louder than usual voice, I said. ‘That’s done. Let’s get back to the Ninth Ward and pick up some more.’

‘What’s that you say,’ he replied, looking up at me in surprise.

I winked at him, then cut my eyes in the direction of the volunteer holding Angelique’s boy. ‘Yeah. There’s still a bunch of folks back over there.’

Though confused, the wiry Melungeon played along with me. ‘
Oui!
We go.’

Backing out, he headed due south. I glanced back, but the volunteer had vanished in the crowd.

Edmund said. ‘What you do that for?’

Latasha frowned. ‘Do what? What are you two talking about?’

I tapped my forearm. ‘Remember when I told you about the Throat Cutters and the tattoo, the octopus? Back there. The guy who helped Angelique and her children was one of those bozos chasing us.’

Latasha’s eyes grew wide. ‘He had a tattoo?’

‘Black as a witch’s heart.’

She cut her eyes back toward the ramp.

‘He’s gone.’

‘You think he recognized us?’

A vagrant gust of wind swept past, carrying with it the stench of moldering wood and rotting fish. ‘No way to tell.’ I gestured towards Metairie. ‘All I know to do is pick up the spare key as fast as we can. How far do you figure we are from Southplace Courts, Edmund?’

He spun the wheel, banking the Marlin west. ‘Not far. Maybe thirty minutes. We—’ He froze, then muttered. ‘
Par tout qu’est saint!
By all that is holy!’

I jerked around as a Sheriff’s Office powerboat came from around the corner of a brick building and headed for us, its red and blues flashing.

Latasha gasped. ‘Edmund!’

‘Hush. You say nothing. Me, I talk to these
garcons
.’ He throttled back and held up his hand. As the police boat grew near, he called. ‘
Fait comment il va, mes amis. Est-ce que vous avez reçu l’ennui?
’ How does it go, my friends. You gots trouble?’

One of the lawman peered closer. He shoved his cap to the back of his head. ‘Edmund? Benoit? That be you?’

The slight Melungeon cocked his head to one side. ‘Tiburse? You old
non bon
. How you be?’

The two craft eased together. I grabbed their gunwale and grinned like the proverbial possum.

Edmund and Tiburse jabbered and laughed for a couple minutes. Tiburse grew serious. ‘What you be doing way over here?’

He held out his hands and shrugged. ‘You know how it be.’ He nodded to Latasha. ‘This one, she gots to see about some valuables at her hotel.’

Tiburse glanced around at the two officers accompanying him, then shook his head. ‘Ain’t nobody suppose to go here. Looters been carrying everything away.’

‘That’s what I tell old what’s-his-name back at the ramp, but he said, this one, her daddy is on the city council. That one, he talked to the mayor and the mayor, he said for us to take her.’

Rolling his eyes, Tiburse grunted. ‘Ain’t that the way it always be? Money done buy everything.’ He waved us on. ‘Go on, but hurry back.’

‘Sooner than you think. Come on over sometime and we’ll boil up a couple baskets of crawfish.’

‘You gots it.’

Latasha whistled softly. ‘That was luck.’

Edmund laughed. ‘Luck? I told you, Edmund is the best pilot on the river, and the best liar,’ he added, lighting up a cigarette.

I slapped him on the shoulder. That was one remark I wouldn’t even begin to dispute.

‘I can use one too,’ Latasha said, lighting up her own.

As we headed deeper into Metairie, an eerie silence fell over the flooded community broken only by the steady purring of our engine.

Latasha shuddered. ‘Spooky out here. Weird.’

I could feel the unnatural presence of which she spoke. The dark windows in the houses reminded me of hollow eyes in a skull, following us as we passed. I had the same disconcerting feeling that I had experienced years earlier in my Milton class at UT when we read the epic poem ‘Paradise Lost.’

She peered over the side. ‘How deep to you think it is?’

I pointed to the top few inches of a submerged car. ‘Deep.’

The slender Melungeon woman sighed and slumped back in her seat. ‘Just our luck.’

‘Not be long,’ Edmund muttered. ‘Not long at all.’

Looking around, Latasha muttered. ‘Looks like we’re all alone. That’s good.’

Too good, I told myself, swiveling my head almost three hundred and sixty degrees. At each moment, I expected to see powerboats erupt from behind buildings or from tree crowns.

But none appeared, only deserted buildings and signs watched us.

Off to our right, the golden arches of a McDonalds stood against the devastated background. Just beyond it was a Jack in the Box sign. Across the road, a somber sign advertised Broussard’s Funeral Home.

I shivered.

Chapter Sixteen

Ahead, I-10 overpasses rose from the water like humps on a camel. A sign pointed to the right, Lake Ave.

Edmund pulled his cigarette from his lips and pointed it to the southwest. ‘There she be.’

Latasha came to stand by my side as we peered across the flooded city.

Southplace Courtyards towered six stories above the flood.

‘Talk about luck,’ she muttered. ‘See!’

I saw. The first floor had only about five feet of water in it. ‘

Many of the hotel windows were open with curtains fluttering outside, ample proof that many had been trapped by the rising waters after the power went out. Now, the Courtyards, like the surrounding businesses, were deserted.

‘Let’s go,’ Latasha said, flipping her cigarette into the muddy waters about us.