“Yes.”
“OK, go there. Three o’clock in the afternoon. Every day. If I don’t show up, try again the next day. I’ll meet you there at three o’clock. Oh, and I promise to be my usual punctual self.”
Julia’s laugh was worried but warm. “I remember.”
“Good. Thanks for the heads-up.” He snapped the phone shut.
“What’s the trouble,” said Tim Trinity.
“FBI.” Daniel pulled off the highway, into a truck stop.
“Lemme guess: They think I blew up the refinery and rigged the lotto.”
“At the very least, they think you
“I do. God did. But what are my chances of convincing
“Yeah,” said Daniel. He pulled slowly alongside a black pickup truck parked at the pumps, tossed the cell phone into its payload, and drove away.
Daniel gave New Orleans a wide berth, cutting north all the way around Lake Pontchartrain, and then south into Cajun Country, past LaPlace, past Houma, picking up a new prepaid cell phone and an LSU baseball cap at a gas station along the way. Back in the truck, he tossed the ball cap to Trinity.
“Go Tigers,” said Trinity, putting the cap on.
They continued south, deeper into the bayou. The road narrowed and foliage thickened as the world became less about land and more about water. The air was heavy with it, hot and salty and vegetal. They rode with the windows down, and Trinity chain-smoked. Daniel didn’t mind; both men were getting a little ripe, and the smoke smelled marginally better than they did.
He stopped on the shoulder and turned on the new phone.
Pat Wahlquist had given Daniel his business card four years ago, after Daniel had smuggled Pat out of Central America. “If the shit ever hits the fan harder than you can handle,” he’d said as he pressed the card into Daniel’s palm. Daniel hadn’t looked at the card since, but he’d always kept it with him, just in case.
He opened his wallet, dug behind the false flap in the billfold section, and pulled out Pat’s card. It read…
PAT WAHLQUIST
Slayer of Dragons
…and a phone number. Daniel dialed the number. Pat picked up on the second ring.
“Wahlquist.”
“Pat, it’s Daniel Byrne.”
“Daniel, my brother from another mother. Long time, long time.”
“Yeah. You said if I ever—”
Pat cut him off. “How can I help?”
“Need a safe place.”
“You called the right number. Where y’at?”
“Just north of Dulac.”
“Coming in hot?”
“No. My cell was compromised, but I got rid of it outside Slidell.”
“Awright, keep on coming south on the Grand Caillou. Number 7244—restaurant on stilts, called Schmoopy’s. I’ll be in the parking lot in twenty. You can follow me in from there.”
“Got it,” said Daniel. “And Pat…”
“Don’t you dare thank me,” said Pat Wahlquist. He broke the connection.
“A mercenary driving a Subaru,” said Tim Trinity as they followed the green Forester. “Now I’ve seen everything.”
“Pat and I bulled our way from Honduras to Guatemala in one,” said Daniel. “They’re solid. And check it out, up there,” he pointed, “it’s got a snorkel, you could drive through four feet of water.” He started to point out the crash bars and roof lights, but realized Trinity had just been bantering. He smiled back.
“Quite a ride,” said Trinity. “Yesterday morning we were 2,500 feet up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, hanging out with the flying squirrels. And now we’re below sea level in the Louisiana swamp, hanging with Mr. Allie Gator and his pals.” His hand swept the scenery. They were no longer just in Bayou Country; they were now well and truly in the swamp.
Pat slowed and signaled, turned right onto a one-lane covered with oystershell gravel. Just a thin finger of land, maybe thirty yards across, moss-draped cedars and shrubs, surrounded by the mangroves and cypress trees that rose from the water on both sides. Their tires crunched on the gravel as they rolled slowly along the finger, toward a one-story ranch house, surprisingly modern for the setting, situated at the end of the narrow spit of land. About fifteen yards from the house, a thick cypress had fallen across the road.
Pat reached up to his visor and pressed on something like a garage door opener. An electric motor somewhere by the side of the road started, and the fallen tree slowly rose to standing. They pulled forward, past the tree, into a circular driveway. The tree came down behind them, once again blocking the road.
Doesn’t matter if you run a barbershop, pharmacy, or gas station, remaining independent in today’s America is an uphill slog and the hill gets steeper with each passing year.
Buddy had always taken great pride in his entrepreneurship, and he’d rejected all buyout offers from the multinational petroleum conglomerates. So the big guys did just what big guys do to mom-and-pops—they built a super-mega-store across the road and undercut his prices. In a few years, he’d be gone and they’d own the road.
To fight back, Buddy had put an oil drum smoker and some picnic tables out back, and Buddy’s Gas Bar became Buddy’s Gas Bar & Bar-B-Que. It helped, but it wasn’t enough. So when the mob guys had come with their offer, Buddy added three video poker terminals to the place.
FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY
And for a stranger, that was true. Just a video game to waste your time and take your quarters. You could rack up credits for free games, and that’s as far as it went. But for locals in the know, the game was real.
The mob guys had provided Buddy with a cashbox to pay out any winnings over twenty bucks, and they gave him a monthly rental fee for the floor space. Sure, it was illegal, but it was a common practice throughout the South, and Buddy needed the money. And the risk to his business license seemed minimal, since the guy they sent to empty the machines each week, Bam Price, was a sheriff’s deputy.
Buddy watched Bam carry the three thick canvas bags out to his police cruiser. Bam locked the money in the trunk and returned to the gas station.
“How’s the float, Buddy? Need topping up?”
“Naw, thanks,” said Buddy. “No big payouts this week.”
“OK.” Bam put a photo on the counter. “Have a look.”
Buddy looked. “Yup, I’ve seen ’em.”
“You’ve seen them?”
“On the TV. Whole world’s lookin’ for them.”
Bam chuckled. “Yeah, well, if you see ’em
Buddy grabbed the reading glasses hanging from a chain around his neck, put them on his nose, and took a closer look at the picture. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “I seen the younger one just today.”
“You sure?”
“Sure I’m sure. He bought a cell phone and a hat.”
“When?”
“Couple hours ago. There was another man in his truck, but I didn’t see him too good, don’t know if it was
