Vigilante

carnation pinned to his lapel, a black overcoat draped across his left arm.

“Guess you should’ve joined my team after all,” he said dryly.

“Where’s Marcia? What did you do to her?”

“She’s waiting in the shed outside.”

“What … what did he shoot me with?”

“Lee Bob hunts gators with a crossbow in the ’Glades. It’s his thing. Loads those darts he makes with succinylcholine. It’s a fast-acting skeletal relaxant. A neuromuscular blocker. It can fully paralyze a bull gator in fifteen seconds. It’s an animal tranquilizer, so no coroner ever puts it on a blood tox screen. Won’t show up at your autopsy, if you even get one.”

“You actually think you can get away with killing me?” I asked.

“Yeah. After Lee Bob does his thing, he’s gonna get lost for a while, go home. Things will cool off.”

Classic psychopathic egotism. Nix was studying me carefully. I saw flashes of adrenalized excitement in his eyes.

“I sorta knew it would come down to this after we had our talk on the Bounty,” he said. “I tried to warn you. I offered you a fortune and a chance to work this with me. If you’d listened, none of this would have happened.”

“You can’t kill us,” I said slowly. “I’m a police officer. Marcia’s an ex-L.A. prosecutor. We both have important friends in Los Angeles. You’ll never get away with it.”

“You obviously haven’t been paying very close attention,” he said softly. “I would think by now you’d know I don’t leave much to chance.” He grabbed a nearby wooden chair, pulled it over, and straddled it, sitting backward. Then he put his chin on his crossed arms and leaned forward, studying me lazily.

“The final confrontation,” he said, smiling. “One winner, one loser. It’s like great sex without the complaining.”

“You haven’t won, and you won’t. People in my department know what’s going on. We found Lee Bob’s Airstream. It’s loaded with evidence. We’re already working on getting a warrant for your arrest.”

“Not in any law school I attended,” he said. “I admit, you surprised me by finding his hideout so fast, but the fact is, I saw that possibility coming over two days ago. I’ve been covering my bets ever since we took that sail. None of that stuff you found up there in that Airstream is gonna tie up to anything. I had Bobby throw it all away, buy new. His clothes, tread wear on the boots, all the ammo. It will match nothing at Lita’s crime scene.”

“Then why are you here? Just come to gloat?”

“I want you to tell me anything that I might not already know.”

“Why would I do that?”

“So you and Marcia won’t have a horrible last hour with Lee Bob before you both die. He’s got a black heart. You don’t want that Cajun miscreant experimenting on you with one of his cane knives.”

“You knew him in Florida, didn’t you? You blew that bust intentionally so he could get away.”

Nash paused for a moment pondering that before he said, “I wish it could have been that easy. Unfortunately, I blew that case on the square. It was a mistake, but I was young and impulsive. It was one of the few times I didn’t think things all the way through. It cost me dearly, but it also allowed for me to move on, to grow, to explore my psyche. There were dark parts of me I needed to understand. Then, fifteen years later, after I was out of prison and had sold my show in Miami, I knew I needed some kind of an edge for it to be huge. I knew what Lee Bob was. I understood what drove him, even back when I first busted him in the nineties. He couldn’t speak proper English, which made him impossible for anybody to talk to. That made him a perfect, watertight partner.”

A small, arrogant smile crossed Nash’s face as he continued. “I learned Cajun. I’d been working airboats, so I already knew that swamp. After I sold V-TV to that local TV station I went back into the ’Glades. It took me a week, but I found him. He’d become even more dangerous than before. He caught and almost murdered me, but using Cajun, I was able to talk him out of it. One day, after things calmed down, he took me to a mud clearing in the middle of the swamp. Nothing but gators, water moccasins, and mosquitoes big as flying beagles. He told me he was building a beautiful city there. ‘Le Gran Batiste,’ he called it. Dreams are powerful things, Shane. They can define or destroy you. There was nothing there but a bunch of stolen lumber and plastic sheeting, but Lee Bob could see a beautiful sun-washed city. I pay him a monthly salary. He’s living to build Le Gran Batiste. It’s all he cares about. Since I sold V-TV, he’s been paid a fortune for the services he’s provided. There’s enough lumber and plumbing stacked on that sandbar now to open up a Home Depot.”

“And you think you can control him? He’s a serial killer.”

“You’re wrong. He’s only delusional and territorial. Like the first Cajun settlers, he kills to protect his land. He’s not crazy. He’s motivated by his dream.”

Nash took a moment to think this over before he said, “I have, however, seen Lee Bob at his tortures. You don’t want to experience that. Marcia’s already come clean. Now you need to tell me what you’ve learned and I’ll see he ends this civilly.”

“Not interested.”

Nash heaved a disappointed sigh and stood. “Sorry you feel that way, but I can promise you this much: the ending will be great TV.”

He looked over at Lee Bob, who had never turned away from whatever he was working on at the bench. “Sors de la chambre a onze, cher,” Nash said, then turned back to face me. “Gotta go. The Children’s Cancer Auction awaits.”

Then he walked out, leaving me there.

Lee Bob finally stood up from his workbench and walked toward me. He was holding a damp white washcloth.

“Avancez,” he said, and grabbed my neck, pulling my head roughly forward. Then he clamped the cloth over my nose and mouth. I held off breathing for as long as I could but finally had to inhale. My nose was suddenly filled with a sweet, pungent odor that clogged my senses.

CHAPTER 46

When I opened my eyes, it was dark outside.

I was in the backseat of Marcia’s Cad convertible, my hands firmly tied behind me, my feet still lashed together with fishing line. I tried to speak but quickly realized a gag was jammed deep down my throat. I had to be careful breathing to keep from aspirating.

I looked over and saw that Marcia was also tied up and gagged beside me. Her eyes were bulging with terror.

Lee Bob Batiste was in the front seat behind the wheel, paying no attention to us, tapping his bony fingers on the dash. We were parked off a main road in a dirt lot. To my right, half a block down, I could just make out a road sign that said:

BUENA VISTA

Buena Vista was in Burbank. Out the other window I could see the exit ramp off the 5 Freeway at San Fernando Boulevard a block and a half away. Something about this location began tugging at my memory, but I couldn’t pull it together because my head was still freewheeling.

Marcia started to gag from the cloth down her throat. Lee Bob stopped drumming his fingers and turned sharply around in his seat.

“Tranquille, cher,” he said. “Da loup-garou ca s’advance.”

I didn’t know what most of that meant, but I’d taken a trip to Mardi Gras when I first got out of the service and thought I remembered that a loup-garou was some kind of fictitious Louisiana wolf-man-monster that wanders around in the night and eats the dead.

Lee Bob checked his watch, turned back, and continued to look out the front windshield. He seemed to be waiting for something. I looked again at Marcia, whose eyes were now darting back and forth in panic; the cords in her neck were rigid.

I was so damn mad at myself for having let this happen. One of these days, if I live, maybe I’ll just follow the