Stop Me (9 page)

The sensation didn’t seize him until he’d cleared customs and had walked through the main concourse of the airport. As soon as he hit the carpeted foyer though it was like a siren had gone off in the back of his head: Bookwalter was watching him. Every passenger had to walk across the area Leo was now dragging his case across and it was populated enough to afford sufficient cover for his arrival to be safely observed.

He resisted the temptation to look round but still half expected to make out Bookwalter in the host of faces that flashed by him. He felt the beginnings of panic and avoided eye contact. Bookwalter had booked the flight; he could so easily have taken it upon himself to head up a welcoming committee. The ridiculous notion of finding Laura standing with him lurched in 
his mind and left an acid sickness in his stomach. It couldn’t happen here, not with him tired and vulnerable from the flight; he needed time to psyche himself up beforehand.

He thought about calling the number that Bookwalter had given him. He could tell him that he’d landed and nothing more. At least that way he would know if he was at the airport or not. He fumbled the paper with the details on from inside his leather jacket pocket and looked at the jumble of numbers. It was probably a cell number anyway.

He had to focus on getting out of here as quickly as possible. He strode faster and sensed somebody looking at him from the corner of his eye. He couldn’t resist the reflex to turn. It was a short, Hispanic driver holding a card with somebody’s surname on. A row of similar people stretched out to Leo’s left and he dreaded seeing his own name materialise. He headed towards a desk to his right with a cab sign above it. It was occupied by a
nicotine-stained
woman, her hair permed into tiny coils.

‘Welcome to N’awlins, sir. Where would you like to go today?’

Leo’s mind was unresponsive so he fidgeted out another piece of paper from inside his jacket, all the while anticipating a hand on his shoulder. ‘Hotel L’agneau.’

‘Great place to stay,’ she said cheerfully and almost convincingly. ‘Join the line at C.’ 

It was sunny outside but a lot colder than he’d anticipated and as he dragged his case through the sliding doors a vaguely unpleasant smell pervaded the air, like something sour was evaporating. C was the only letter he could find. The line moved quickly though and he breathed a sigh of relief as soon as his case was loaded and he was sealed in the back of the cab. The cab driver lobbed some platitudes at him but Leo didn’t hear them because his attention was fixed behind them until he was reassured that they hadn’t been followed from the pick-up point.

Hotel L’agneau was in Barrack’s Street on the north edge of the French Quarter and the journey there confirmed that the Mardis Gras celebrations of the previous few weeks were well and truly over. The streets were still littered with the debris though; plastic beer cups, beads and streamers were still being swept out of the gutters. Leo identified the aroma as stale booze and urine. Hurricane Katrina or not, New Orleans was still taking care of business and Leo had landed slap bang in the middle of the hangover.

The hotel had the traditional New Orleans frontage but the recently applied paint couldn’t disguise the malignant rust on its wrought-iron railings. Its white, seventeenth-century frontage looked infected with it as well and as the cab pulled up, Leo waited for the liver-spotted exterior to cough and splutter. It would suffice though because it was at the opposite pole to 
Bookwalter’s neighbourhood. He was in Crescent City, which was actually just outside New Orleans, eastbound on Route 90 which crossed the stretch of the Mississippi that Leo was glad separated them.

His room was ‘tucked nicely in back’ as the old boy with worn shiny trousers informed him, as if it was a selling point. But Leo didn’t register the sloping floors and the furniture leaning away from the walls; he just dumped his case on the bed where it remained unopened and looked down on the overgrown courtyard through his small window. It felt like late afternoon and when he looked at his watch that he’d set to New Orleans time as they’d landed, he was surprised to find he was right. Four thirty – his intuition for daylight hours seemed to be returning.

The ball was in his court. He was to decide where and when their meeting would take place.

Laveau’s Chicken Shack was a chicken and biscuits chain and at dinnertime it was full of families gorging on that day’s meal deal. The din was incredible. Leo ordered something at random, took his tray and sat at a table in the middle of the restaurant. He’d wandered around a few bars but wanted the venue to be as populated as possible. The drinking holes in the French Quarter were all dimly lit and Laveau’s Chicken Shack had no walls, only windows. 

Late afternoon sun was still making the diners squint and as he glanced at the contents of his tray he tried to remember the last time he’d eaten. It didn’t feel like it would happen anytime soon either. He’d telephoned Bookwalter from a call box and told him where they were to meet. Bookwalter had sounded dubious but agreed and said he would be there in twenty minutes. Had that been for Leo’s benefit or was he actually watching him?

Do you feel impregnable?

With an ocean between them it had been easy for Leo to believe that he was out of his correspondent’s grasp but now he was here, separated only by minutes, Leo felt like Bookwalter already had the advantage. It was his domain. He looked around at the people distracted by their food. He felt susceptible in the presence of more than one person at home let alone sat amongst a society that felt entirely alien to him. Leo felt quite unnerved by how single-minded the process of eating seemed and there seemed to be no chance that his gaze would be returned by anyone else.

He focused on the grey chicken and the bag of deep fried whatever-the-hell-it-was on his tray while he sucked something ice cold and sugary through a straw. He felt it cold in the middle of his forehead and fixed his attention on the entrance. He’d spent some time in the queue and wondered how many minutes had elapsed since he’d got off the phone to Bookwalter. 

If Bookwalter walks in now, Laura is here.

Outside, the flow of pedestrians seemed to increase as the sun burning the urine off the sidewalks began to lose its intensity. Another family walked in:
middle-aged
father in a bright shirt, shorts and flip-flops, the mother wearing hardly anything when she really should have – her tanned cellulite folded over the top of her denim hot pants as another roll of flab tried to meet it from beneath her knotted midriff T-shirt. Their bored, nearly teenage kids looked as happy to be in the place as they did. They stopped a few feet from the counter and squinted at the menu and then Mom walked forward dragging the kids to make their choices. Dad stayed where he was and then Leo realised that he wasn’t with the woman and children. He had simply walked in behind them. It was Bookwalter.

At that moment Bookwalter spotted Leo, rolled his eyes and slopped up to the table. ‘Surely you’re not eating here?’ Like watching his onscreen dialogue, his drawl seemed to frustrate the speed at which he wanted to speak and Leo could see the intelligence in his
blue-grey
eyes flickering like a hard drive.

Bookwalter put his hands on his hips and looked away to study the menu over the counter again, breathing heavily. Leo felt uneasy as he took his time to survey it.

Here was a man who clearly enjoyed his food. From the pictures and footage online, Leo had seen 
little of the area below his shoulders, and was quite surprised at how rotund the man was. Leo estimated his height to be no more than five foot six. His features were undoubtedly fuller as well. The hair that Leo had suspected had been in short supply on his head – because of the beret he wore in the photos – was actually quite abundant. He was definitely thinning but a stubborn and significant jetty of auburn hair extended in a V shape from the back of his head where his longer fronds covered his ears and just touched the collar of his orange Hawaiian shirt. The new addition to his face was a moustache of the same colour that drooped over his top lip, the ends touching the edge of his chin.

‘Do you like seafood?’ Bookwalter asked eventually as if it were highly unlikely that he did.

‘Uh, yeah—’ Leo didn’t know whether to stand and offer his hand but it seemed the time for a physical greeting was over.

Relief flooded Bookwalter’s face and he wiped at it with a handkerchief that he had balled in his hand. ‘Let’s go to King Crawdaddy’s then. You have to taste their shrimp etouffee. I’m buying.’ His eyes narrowed earnestly at Leo.

The offer seemed so casual and Leo almost welcomed the opportunity to be out of the noise. ‘Here’s fine…if you don’t mind.’ Why had he been thinking about shaking the guy’s hand? He should have been over the 
table with his hands around his throat for posting the picture of Laura on the internet. But their surroundings seemed to preclude anything other than the glib and Leo already felt his apprehension sapping.

Bookwalter’s eyes shifted sideways; he frowned and then shrugged theatrically. ‘Sure, whatever you say.’ His words trickled slowly as oil but Leo wondered if he’d been favoured with a caricature of simple ‘Awlins to put him at his ease. He sat down opposite him and Leo wondered if the fact that his frame was barely supported by the plastic chair was the real motive for him wanting to leave. As he waggled his buttocks, it was difficult to believe that this was a man capable of anything more than passing the time of the day, let alone the allusive retorts he’d been feeding to Leo.

It was bizarre but it felt like Leo already knew him. Having seen only jpegs and grainy images, and heard his voice filtered through a speaker and the tenth rate quality of his YouTube clips, it still felt like they met up like this on a regular basis. He seemed somehow smaller in stature than Leo expected, despite the pounds that hung off his frame, but otherwise his presence was unnervingly familiar – as if they’d spent months sat in the same proximity but never looking up from their computers. Even the smell of Bookwalter’s aftershave smelt commonplace.

Perhaps putting people at ease was his trick and it was only by making a concerted effort to remember what 
had been trickling down the internet from Bookwalter to Leo that he resisted the sudden temptation to feel utterly unthreatened.

For a moment the idea flashed through his mind that this was a huge mistake. He hadn’t doubted that from the moment he’d agreed to come but Leo was suddenly seized by the notion that everything was a massive misunderstanding. A frown would converge on Bookwalter’s ingenuous features as soon as he started talking about Laura and, somehow, Leo felt it must transpire they had both been duped by some third party who’d had them talking at cross purposes for all this time.

‘Good flight?’ Bookwalter chewed on something invisible.

Leo nodded quickly.

‘Where are you staying?’

‘In town.’ Leo tried not to feel uncomfortable about being so terse to the man who had paid for his trip.

‘You should go see the Superdome while you’re here. Since the floods it’s become our most spiritual landmark.’ Again, Bookwalter’s eyes were fixed on him earnestly and left only the sound of his straining nostrils between them.

‘How’s the desalination protest?’

‘Futile.’ Bookwalter looked irked by the question, folded his arms on the table and looked sideways. It looked as if he were about to share something intimate 
but when he turned it appeared he was waiting for Leo to ask him a more palatable question. Leo tried to think of one but the very fact that he was swapping chitchat with a man who claimed to be holding Laura captive had fused his tongue to the top of his mouth. Bookwalter sniffed and dabbed his face with his handkerchief again. It wasn’t even hot in the restaurant but he looked as if he’d got sunburnt since he’d sat down. Probably high blood pressure. ‘She’s so excited you came.’

Leo should have been nodding sceptically but felt only an internal hiss of relief. Whatever Bookwalter did to try and mitigate his claim in the future, Leo, momentarily, didn’t care. He had justified his presence in this place, in Bookwalter’s company and, for however brief it was, he had a purpose. It would be over as quickly as everything else he’d done to find Laura, and he knew that this was maybe a shorter dead end than Mutatkar. For now, though, it meant that they were going to talk about Laura and that was something nobody else wanted to do anymore.

‘When can I see her?’

‘Whenever you want,’ Bookwalter said
matter-of
-factly. He leant back in his chair and lifted his arms as if expecting to be able to drape them along something behind him, then let them drop back into his lap, slouching forward again. He looked utterly uncomfortable, like a petulant child who hadn’t been 
allowed to get down from the table. ‘Have you finished here?’ He nodded towards Leo’s full tray.

‘I’m not going to be eating, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Let’s go then.’

‘Go?’ DON’T GO. DON’T GO.

‘Well…you said you want to go see her.’

Leo certainly hadn’t been prepared for this. ‘Where?’ It wasn’t the answer his brain wanted to give.

‘I’ll take you there.’ Bookwalter examined the panic on Leo’s face with amusement. ‘Look, we’ll call two cabs. You follow mine. I take you anywhere you feel uncomfortable and you can ask your driver to turn around.’ Bookwalter produced his telephone.

‘Why didn’t she come with you?’

Bookwalter’s smile broadened and Leo didn’t like it. It was just a spasm, a movement of muscles that allowed him to see his stained teeth. ‘She’s waiting.’

Leo shook his head for effect. LEAVE NOW. ‘And what would you do in my position?’

‘I probably wouldn’t come.’ Bookwalter got to his feet. ‘It’s your decision though. I don’t want to pressure you into doing anything you don’t want to but I’m trying to make this as easy as possible. All I can tell you is you’re in no danger whatsoever. Someone know you’re here?’