endured. From his mother there were no secrets, only shades of the truth for her consumption. She loved Martin’s soul and he loved hers. They might be the only two people on earth with souls. He was truly content only when she held him against her and talked softly to him. No one could ever understand their love. No one.
Besides, he remembered her earliest admonition as she worked over his manhood with her oiled hands. “In nature a mother’s love is a pure thing-a real thing. After all, what’s a man but a tame animal? Animals in the wild do it with their mothers, so it’s natural as anything.”
A garbage truck blowing past interrupted his memories. He opened his eyes and glanced at his watch. He couldn’t get back into the moment for a while, but with concentration he was back there as though it had all happened a week earlier instead of over thirty years. The evening before, Martin had seen the Cadillac on the news as it had been pulled from the river like some great fish from the depths, the driver’s form a bloated shadow; his left arm caught in the rush of escaping water had waved like a flipper. PROMINENT LOCAL BUSINESSMAN SLAIN. Front-page banner. Even in a city as numbed to murder as New Orleans, it warranted celebrity handling. There were photos of Lallo Estevez with his young children, with the mayor, the present governor, who was the past governor as well. There was a shot of his chauffeur standing at attention while Lallo entered the limousine. The gangster with his extra smile who had been discovered by the towboat crew was buried in a lower column in section B. Martin had hoped that the car wouldn’t be discovered before he had finished in New Orleans. But it added an interesting addition to the mix, and he couldn’t have let that business lag or affect the mission he had devoted the last six years to. Add another variable into the complex equation. They would try to catch him with his mother in Florida-but had no idea of how slim the odds of their succeeding really were. He smiled at the thought of how he would make the DEA professionals look like what they were: dead clowns.
At two o’clock Erin walked through the school doors in the center of a wave of kids. She was barely able to contain her excitement. She exchanged looks with Eric Garcia and was sure she was blushing. They had spent ten minutes formulating a plan at recess. He had all afternoon to spend as he saw fit. She didn’t, but hadn’t told him that. She had told him that her father had bodyguards watching her-that he was a DEA agent and worried excessively. If Eric had been reluctant to date the daughter of a federal agent who put watchdogs on his daughter’s tail, he didn’t give any indication of it. In fact, the challenge of seeing her under such circumstances seemed to excite him.
Erin saw Sean standing beneath a tree in the schoolyard with his hands in the pockets of his seersucker suit coat. He was wearing dark glasses, but she knew his eyes were locked on her. He wouldn’t approach her but would walk behind her all the way home. They had wanted to drive her from door to door, but she had refused flatly. Her mother had reluctantly taken her side, saying that they could cover her without embarrassing her in front of her friends. As she passed Sean, he started walking. She looked over her shoulder and saw Eric slide into his mother’s gray Mercedes.
Erin walked the two blocks to the streetcar stop. She turned to find Sean standing three feet behind her, surveying the people nearby. He met her stare.
“Hi,” she said.
He nodded. “Where’s your Mace?” he said.
“Haven’t got a refill yet. So where’s my ten bucks, and I can go over to K and B for one?”
He reached into his pocket and started going through his wallet. He handed her a ten.
“Okay, we’re even.” She put it into the zippered compartment on her backpack. “It was your fault, you know.”
“If you say so.”
“Okay, so let’s let bygones be bygones,” she said. She handed him her book bag. “Least you can do is carry my books. They’re heavy.”
Erin looked out of the corner of her eye as the streetcar approached. There were maybe a dozen kids and a few adults waiting for the car. Sean took the bag with his left hand and placed the strap over his shoulder. The car pulled up, and the conductor opened the front and rear doors simultaneously. People started climbing in through the front while others exited through the rear doors. Sean and Erin were going to be last in.
“After you,” she said.
He smiled and started to climb in. Then he realized something was happening, and he turned to see her running for a nearby Mustang that had pulled up crowded with young girls. Before he could close the distance, Erin jumped over the door of the car, fell in among the other bodies, and the tires squealed as the vehicle pulled away from the curb, the laughter of girls filling the air. Sean cursed out loud as he ran after the car until it was obvious that he was never going to come within a hundred yards. He turned in time to see the streetcar pulling away, leaving him standing in the middle of St. Charles holding her book bag. He was filled with dread as he fished the cell phone from his breast pocket.
A battered Chevrolet Caprice honked at him, and he stepped to the curb, cursing and feeling very small. He heard the car’s driver laughing as it pulled by him, a loud barking that ricocheted around in the car’s interior. The big automobile roared off in the direction the Mustang had gone.
Seconds later the prowl car that had been providing additional cover wheeled up beside Sean, and he jumped into the backseat. They gave chase, but the next light changed before they got there, and a line of cars began moving across the intersection immediately. The policeman turned on his blue lights, and the cars moved grudgingly aside. Sean cursed out loud, but by the time the prowl car had cleared the intersection, the Mustang had several blocks on them.
38
Woody carried the small nylon book sack as he escorted Reb to the red Volvo 850 that he had parked by the front doors. Children were scattering as they passed out of the doors of the buildings. Reb’s bus was in the line, along with ten others waiting for their passengers.
“Why can’t I ride the bus?” Reb asked as they reached the car. “And you follow like always.”
“Not today.” Woody’s reply was flat, businesslike. Alton Vance, one of the agents who had spent the last few days watching over Reb’s school, was in the rear seat, waiting.
Woody scanned the line of cars and buses for anyone who might be out of place before he climbed into the Volvo. Reb looked at the agent in the backseat. “Hi,” he said. His eyes rested on the short black object beside the agent’s leg. “What’s that?” he said, barely able to mask the excitement.
“That’s my water gun,” the agent said, smiling.
“It’s an Uzi, isn’t it?”
“Belt in, Reb,” Woody said.
“Can I shoot it sometime?”
“Get your hands wet. It leaks something awful,” Alton Vance said.
Woody cut his eyes to the backseat, and the agent shifted uncomfortably. Then he looked at Reb. “Forget it,” he said. He reached over and belted Reb into the seat. As they were pulling out, the cell phone rang. Woody opened it and put it to his ear. “Yeah?”
The agent listened for a few seconds and then put the telephone in his lap. The car accelerated rapidly and kept gaining speed until the needle was passing eighty. Alton’s eyes met Woody’s in the rearview.
“All right,” Reb said, his eyes searching Woody and the speedometer. “Smoke it, baby!”
Alton’s eyes asked the question.
“Sean dropped the package on St. Charles,” Woody said.
Alton tensed and nodded.
Reb looked up at Woody. “That’s code. A package means a person. ‘Dropped’ means ‘killed’? He killed somebody?”
Woody cut his eyes over on a straightaway. “No. Dropped means dropped. Lost.”
“Erin?” Reb’s face had lost color.
Woody nodded.
“The killing man got her?” His voice trembled.
“No,” Woody said, adding a reassuring smile. “She’s in a Mustang with some girlfriends.”
