“You never looked at the gauge?” Bertrand said.
“You didn’t look at it, either, man. Get off my case,” Eddy said.
“Maybe the line just got something in it,” Andre said.
“It’s empty, man,” Eddy said.
Andre stood up clumsily, rocking the boat. He tugged at the gas can and slammed it back down. “What we gonna do?”
“You gonna shut up. You gonna stop making all that noise,” Bertrand said.
“I’m just trying to help, man. We can tow it,” Andre said.
“There’s water out there that’s six feet deep,” Bertrand said.
Andre started to speak again.
“Just let me think,” Bertrand said.
The four of them sat silently in the darkness, the branches of the downed oak limb sticking them in the eyes and the backs of their necks each time the wind blew against the boat.
Bertrand stepped over the side into the water. “Y’all wait here. Don’t do nothing. Don’t talk. Don’t make no noise. Don’t be playing wit’ the money in the bag. Keep your ass in the boat and your mout’ shut. Y’all got that?”
“What you gonna do?” Eddy said.
“Hear that sound? The man over there got generators in his garage. That means he got gas cans in his garage.”
“Why you walking bent over, wit’ your hand on your stomach?” Andre asked.
“’Cause y’all give me ulcers,” Bertrand replied.
“I ain’t meant nothing by it. You a smart man,” Andre said.
No, just not as dumb as y’all, Bertrand thought to himself.
He waded across the neutral ground and approached the driveway of the lighted house. A bulb burned on the front gallery and another inside the porte cochere. A light in the kitchen fell through the windows on part of the driveway and the backyard. His heart was hammering against his rib cage, his pulse jumping in his neck. He tripped on a curbstone and almost fell headlong into the water. In the darkness he thought he saw eyes looking at him from the tangles of brush and tree limbs in the yard. He wondered if he was losing his mind. He stopped and stared into the yard, then realized wood rabbits had sought refuge from the floodwater and had climbed into the downed limbs and were perched there like birds, their fur sparkling with moisture.
Bertrand worked his way around the far side of the porte cochere, avoiding the light. He crossed between two huge camellia bushes, the leaves brushing back wetly against his arms, and entered the parking area by what uptown white people called “the carriage house.” Why did they call it a carriage house when they didn’t own no carriages? He asked himself. ’Cause that’s a way of telling everybody Robert E. Lee took a dump in their commode in 1865?
He could hear at least two generators puttering beyond the half-opened door of the “carriage house.” Then he detoured through the backyard and crossed into the neighbor’s property, looked around, and removed an object from under his shirt. He bent over briefly, then retraced his steps back into Otis Baylor’s yard, his ulcers digging their roots deeper into his stomach lining. He stepped inside the carriage house and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. Five jerry cans of gasoline were lined against the wall. He hefted up one in each hand and headed for the street, the St. Augustine grass by the porte cochere squishing under his shoes, the weight of the gas swinging in the cans. He had pulled it off. Right on, Bertrand. Stomp ass and take names, my brother, a voice said inside him.
Then he was past the apron of electrical light that shone into the yard, back into the safety of the street and the warmth of the floodwater that covered his ankles and rose up the calves of his legs like an old friend. Soon he would split from Eddy and the Rochons and be home free and free at last, loaded with money for good doctors and the good life. It would be Adios, all you stupid motherfuckers, Bertrand Melancon is California-bound.
Then he saw Eddy towing the boat from behind the pile of downed limbs, giving up their natural cover, an unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth. Andre and Kevin were outside the boat, too, steering it around obstacles in the water, all them now in full view of the house from which Bertrand had just stolen the jerry cans of gasoline.
“What the fuck you doing, man? Why didn’t y’all stay put?” Bertrand said.
“What took you so long? You stop to flog your rod back there? Fill her up and let’s go,” Eddy said.
He sparked his Zippo, the tiny emery wheel rolling on the flint-once, twice, three times.
“Eddy-” Bertrand heard himself say.
The Zippo’s flame flared in the darkness, crisping the end of Eddy’s cigarette, lighting an inquisitive smile on his face, as though he had not understood what his brother had said.
Bertrand heard a single report behind him, but he could not coordinate the sound with the event taking place in front of him. A red flower burst from Eddy’s throat and a split second later, right behind Eddy, the cap of Kevin Rochon’s skull exploded from his head, scattering his brains on the water like freshly cooked oatmeal.
Chapter 10
IN ANY AMERICAN slum, two enterprises are never torched by urban rioters: the funeral home and the bondsman’s office. From Clete Purcel’s perspective, the greatest advantage in chasing down bail skips for bondsmen like Nig Rosewater and Wee Willie Bimstine was the fact their huge clientele of miscreants was sycophantic by nature and always trying to curry favor from those who had control over their lives. Big-stripe Angola graduates who would take a back-alley beating with blackjacks rather than dime a friend would ratfuck their mothers in order to stay in Nig and Willie’s good graces.
From the moment Clete Purcel had been run down in the Quarter, his porkpie hat stenciled with tire tread, the word was out: Bertrand and Eddy Melancon and their asswipe friend Andre Rochon were shark meat.
While the Melancons and Rochon and his nephew Kevin were powerboating all over uptown New Orleans, eating white speed boosted from a pharmacy, drinking warm beer and eating rotisserie chickens courtesy of Winn-Dixie, laughing at the unbelievable amount of loot they were amassing, they were dimed on at least two occasions by fellow lowlifes who had ended up in the chain-link jail at the airport, where Nig and Willie’s representatives were doing fire-sale amounts of business.
But ironically it was not betrayal by his colleagues that brought about Bertrand’s undoing. For probably the first time in his life he acted with total disregard for his own self-interest and loaded his brother into the boat while Andre bag-assed down the street and Eddy hemorrhaged cups of blood from his throat.
Bertrand’s hands were trembling as he fueled the boat engine. He was sure the shooter was still out there, either in one of the yards or inside one of the houses that fronted the street. He was convinced the shooter was taking aim at him, moving the scope or the iron sights across Bertrand’s face and chest or perhaps his scrotum, taking his time, enjoying it, softly biting down on his bottom lip as he tightened his finger on the trigger. The image caused a sensation in Bertrand that was like someone stripping off his skin with pliers. His hands were not only slick with Eddy’s blood and saliva but shaking so badly his thumb slipped off the starter button when he tried to depress it.
When the engine caught, he twisted the throttle wide open and roared across the floodwater, Kevin’s body bobbing in his wake. He thudded over a dead animal at the intersection and heard the propeller whine in the air before it plowed into the water again. He was almost sideswiped by an NOPD boat loaded with heavily armed cops. He slapped across their wake and veered up a cross street into an alley, pausing long enough to wedge the garbage and laundry bags inside a garage rafter. Up ahead, he could see the lights of a helicopter that was descending on a hospital rooftop. He reduced his speed and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. He and Eddy had found safe harbor, a place where someone would care for his brother and save his life. It was the building in which they were both born. It was almost like coming home.
Bertrand had never heard of Dante’s Ninth Circle. But he was about to get the guided tour.
THE FIRST FLOOR of the hospital had three feet of water in it. The corridors were black, except for the beams of flashlights carried by the personnel. The heated smell of medical and human waste in the water made Clete pull
