CHAPTER 20.

Ranson would not let me out of her apartment all week. I kept waking up from dreams that I couldn't quite remember, just s.n.a.t.c.hes of images. Running down a dark street, or in the sunlit woods. But I never knew what was chasing me. I tried not to drink, but sometimes I had to just to get to sleep.

We argued about my going to Frankie's funeral. I was sure that between those masters of disguise, Richard and Torbin, no one would be able to recognize me, but, with a little help from Hutch (he threatened to sit on me), she kept me away. I got to stay in and read the obituaries in the Times-Picayune. Frankie's was small and brief for a small and brief life. Ignatious Holloway got a big spread, picture and all. Life was not fair.

Hutch sat with me during Frankie's funeral, to make sure I didn't get any bright ideas. We played chess, but, because I was distracted, he beat me two out of three times.

By the end of the week, I was stir-crazy. Better stir-crazy than dead was all the sympathy I got out of Ranson. She was out most of the time and I couldn't have visitors over because I wasn't supposed to be here. Occasionally I could hear the distant sounds of the parades and the drunken camaraderie of Mardi Gras. All at a distance. For me, of course, it was verboten. It's too easy to knife someone in a crowd, Ranson told me. I should have told her that death from boredom is a much worse fate.

The weekend was a little better. Ranson turned into a social b.u.t.terfly (well, moth) and invited Danny and Elly over on Sat.u.r.day.

Alex, too, of course. It was a wonderful evening. I got to hear about all * 198 *

the places everyone else went during the week. What parades they saw or had to avoid. Bookstores, movies, concerts. Danny and Elly were going bicycling with Cordelia and Th.o.r.eau on Sunday. They invited us along, but Ranson turned it down. I hadn't gone cycling since I was a kid. It sounded like fun. All I could do was sit and wait, read, watch television, fight boredom, just wait.

Monday morning Ranson threw the paper on top of me. She was dressed and ready to go. I was still abed, albeit on the couch. Just because she had to keep policeman's hours didn't mean I had to.

"Read it and weep," she said.

I looked at the page she indicated. There was a wedding announcement for Cordelia James and Th.o.r.eau Hathaway. What a name, his not hers. Both theirs, really. Daughter of Holloway, granddaughter of Holloway. Them rich Holloways. Ben was right. Bayou rats should stick with bayou people. "d.a.m.n heteros," I commented. "Some people are just born straight."

"And others have the angles knocked out of them," Ranson said.

I wondered what she meant by that, but she was out the door before I got a chance to ask.

I slowly got up, poured myself a cup of coffee, and proceeded to read the paper at my leisure. There was not much else to do. A line caught my eye. "Twenty years ago today..." I read, but I never got to what happened in the article.

Twenty years ago today. I looked at the date on the paper, but I knew what it was. February 25th. The anniversary of my father's death and my life stopping and starting over again. I never thought it fair that this day should happen every year and that my birthday, on the 29th, happens only once every four years.

I got up, but there was nowhere to go. d.a.m.n Ranson and d.a.m.n this tiny apartment. It wasn't small, really, but I felt caged and chained in. I paced back and forth. I wanted out. I wanted to run as far and fast as I could. Like I had been running in my dreams. But you can't run from yourself.

Ranson's car pulled up. Odd. I wondered what was so important for her to come rushing back so quickly.

"Get your coat. I need you," she said, only sticking her head in the doorway.

I grabbed my jacket and followed her. She was back in the car * 199 *

and had it started by the time I got there. She didn't say anything as we drove off, her face set with the hard lines of tension and worry. Finally, she handed me a file. "Can you talk to him?"

Who? I looked at the file. Ben Beaugez. Oh, G.o.d, Ben, what has life broken you to now?

We were driving toward a dilapidated section of wharves, a part of the river docks that had long ago fallen into disuse. Perhaps they had been slapped together in some burst of optimism, but when the expected ships arrived slowly or not at all, they were abandoned to the pa.s.sing of time. The only other car in sight was a derelict, long since picked over by the scavengers. I could see no other people.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Revenge," Ranson answered. "Your friend is out to get the man he claims killed his wife and two kids twenty years ago today."

She parked next to a deserted warehouse.

I felt numb. This had to be a dream. A nightmare. "But Cordelia's father is dead," I blurted out.

"You tell him that." Ranson continued, "Cordelia called me. He let her use a phone long enough to demand that her father show up. She asked me to get a death certificate-anything-to prove that he's really dead. I don't think Beaugez will believe a piece of paper." She gave me a pointed look.

I glanced away from her, staring instead at the dilapidated warehouse. Letters once named it, but they were weathered away to dingy smudges, a shadow noticeable only in the strong light of day.

We got out of the car and Ranson led me around the side of the warehouse toward the freight doors. They were partly open, narrowly framing a jumble of empty and broken crates inside, piles of unwanted and unused debris. Through the window Ranson pointed to a far corner.

The warehouse was huge, its floor sagging lumber, the high ceilings bisected almost at random by the weathered rafters. It held only two people-an older man and a younger woman. I could only glimpse them through the cracked and dirt-stained window.

Ranson stepped up to the open door. "Ben," she called, "I've brought Micky...Robedeaux."

For a moment, Ben didn't answer, as if he couldn't remember who Micky Robedeaux was. When it came, Ben's reply was bitter and * 200 *

angry. And perhaps drunk. "You shouldn't have brought her. I want the man that killed my wife and kids. You lied to me!" I tried to focus on him, to block out the dirt and distance that kept his face a blur-only a drunken old man, not someone I recognized from the sharply etched memories of childhood.

"I can't bring you Jefferson Holloway. He's dead," Ranson replied.

"You're lyin'. Bring that d.a.m.n coward."

I called out to him, "She's right, Ben. Holloway died years ago."

"I don't want Micky here."

I saw Ben move, a tense motion of his hand. He had a gun. Ranson saw it, too. I suddenly wondered who he was, whether I knew him at all, or if I only knew some frail memory from very long ago.

I didn't want anything to happen to Cordelia. Or Ben either. It seemed as if he wanted some victory, a final triumph over fate. But he didn't look victorious, only lonely and scared in all that s.p.a.ce. "He won't pull the trigger," I said, moving toward the door so that Ben could see me.

"Look at that file, dammit." Ranson backed away from the door to block my way. Without giving me time to open the folder I still had in my hand, she continued, "He spent the last twelve years in prison for manslaughter. He lost his temper in a bar and hit a man in the head with a vodka bottle. Still sure he won't pull the trigger?"

"I don't... It was a mistake. He lost his temper, you said. Ben's not...he's a decent person."

"Decent people don't hold guns to people's heads and threaten them."

"Let me get closer so that I can talk to him."

"What if you fail?"

"I can't...I won't."

"Not good enough. I'm calling backup. I can't risk Cordelia's life because the man you knew twenty years ago might not pull the trigger."

"And then what? You blow his brains out to save her?"

"If I have to," Ranson replied bluntly. "I'm sorry, Micky." She led me back around the corner of the warehouse to her car. "Stay here," she ordered me as she opened her car door to use the radio.

There would be no ending that I cared to witness. I didn't want * 201 *

to watch Ben gunned down like some mangy animal. I didn't think he would kill Cordelia, but... What revenge was he seeking? Was it only Jefferson Holloway? Or, having lost two children, would he include a daughter? Would the man I knew twenty years ago hold a hostage at gunpoint? And accidents could happen. I shuddered.

"I want to look at him." Ben's voice, distorted and bent by alcohol and anger, carried through a broken window. "Is Jefferson Holloway too scared to save his own daughter?"

I heard the harsh crackle of Ranson's police radio, the raspy voice on the far end concerned only with logistics, a man with a gun to be dealt with the way all men with guns are dealt with. Hunted with more guns.

Ranson turned slightly, leaning against the car. I waited until she started talking again, then I turned and ran for the door of the warehouse.

As I turned the corner, I heard Ranson ordering me to come back, but I ignored her, losing the sound of her voice altogether as I entered the warehouse.

"Ben," I called as I ran. "It's me, Micky, Little Micky. I have to talk to you." I slowed as I got nearer and made sure that my hands were visible so that Ben could see that I didn't have a weapon. I started to walk when I was about twenty feet away.

"Ben," I said. "It's me, Micky."

"Micky, you shouldn't be here. d.a.m.n cop had no business bringin'

you here." His voice stopped me.

I was close enough to see Cordelia's face. The barrel of Ben's gun was pressed against her neck. Her eyes were a blazing blue against the stark paleness of her skin.

"I have to talk to you, Ben. I was there that night. In the back of the truck."

He started with surprise. The barrel jerked against Cordelia's jaw.

"Let her go, Ben."

"No, I can't. I have to see him. Her father. This is the only way."

"He's dead. He died that night. You can't see him. She helps people. She's a doctor," I pleaded.

"She didn't save my kids," Ben replied bitterly.

"But she did save me," I answered. "I got hurt and she took care of me. Cordelia is a friend. If you hurt her, you'll only hurt me."

* 202 *

He didn't let go of her, but he lowered the pistol and held it down at his side. Cordelia let out a breath. I saw her tremble slightly.

"You know, Ben, I still own the shipyard. I never let it go," I said. "How about a partnership? You're the best boatwright I know."

I was serious. If Ben put down that gun, I would take him back to the shipyard. I could never do it by myself, but with him maybe I could.

Maybe we could put our lives back where they belonged, recapture some of the best memories.

"I need Alma and the kids," he answered, sadly shaking his head.

"But..." For a moment something possible, something happy pa.s.sed his eyes, then it was gone, just the slow sad shaking of his head, seeing what was really there. He would go back to jail and I would always be by myself at the shipyard.

"What happened that night, Micky? I can't live not knowing. Is he really dead?"

The story I never told. That I never wanted to tell. How many bars and bottles did I go to, to get away from my memories? I took a long breath and let it out. If it finally catches you, at least you won't have to run anymore, I told myself.

"Dad picked up Alma and David from her mother's. You remember, it was on the way back. We had been to the city for some business. Dad let me play hooky so I could go with him. So we picked up Alma and David and her mom gave her a pie. She put the pie on the seat, since she couldn't hold it on her lap." I paused, going back to that day.

I remembered Alma, small, pale blond, and eight months pregnant.

David, their son, pale like his mother, was three.

"David got inside on the floor, next to her feet. I climbed in back and barricaded myself with sandbags and pretended I was riding in a tank." I stopped again, remembering the game too well. The wind in my hair as we rode away from the last light of the setting sun. The trees that I would aim at with an old piece of pipe, reliving and embellishing the stories Dad had told of the war. I was suddenly my ten-year-old self, and the ten-year-old couldn't tell the story. I took a breath and wrenched myself back into adulthood and its numbness.

"We drove. It was dark and I knew it had to be late. We got to the curves." The curves of the road following the river. "I knew because we slowed down for them. We were going around the last one, when I was * 203 *

thrown around hard. There was a deafening noise, brakes squealing, metal striking metal. I got thrown against the sandbags. It hurt, knocked the wind out of me. Then it was quiet and everything stopped and I lay there, waiting for Dad to come and get me. But he didn't come and I started to get worried. I got up and looked around. We were in the middle of the road, but the truck was pointed at the pine trees. And Dad wasn't coming. I waited a little longer just to be sure. I was impatient, he'd always told me. And then I thought that maybe Alma was hurt and since I was okay he was looking after her. But I realized that he couldn't know I was all right. And I got very scared.

"It wasn't a good section of road to be on at night. Dad had once fixed a flat tire around here and he wouldn't let me get out. He told me he didn't know what might crawl out of the dark." I paused again, letting myself breathe. I told the story as the child I had been because that was how I knew to tell it. I had never thought about it enough to change or rearrange it.

"I opened the big wooden chest, where he kept tools and stuff that he didn't want to get wet. Because I knew something was wrong...and I was scared, I got out his shotgun. I climbed out with the gun that was as big as I was. I went to the cab and stood on tiptoe on the runner and looked in. Dad was there, his head resting against the steering wheel.

He could have been asleep. There was a little trickle of blood running down his chin from his mouth. That was all. But I knew he wasn't asleep, because he wouldn't be asleep at a time like this and he wouldn't leave me." I felt tears starting to slide down my cheeks. I wiped them quickly away. It was twenty years ago, I told myself harshly. You didn't cry then, don't bother now.

"I could barely see Alma and I couldn't see David." She was moaning in a low voice, but I couldn't tell Ben that. "I tried to think what to do.

"Then I heard a woman scream and a man cursed loudly in the car that was half off the other side of the road. There was a dull thud and the woman screamed again, then another thud and she didn't make any more noise, but the man was still yelling. He climbed out of the car and came over toward me. I ducked into the bushes. He was cursing and yelling. He was dragging the woman behind him. She didn't move. He threw her into the back of the truck. He threw her hard enough that she * 204 *

should have yelled, but she didn't. She didn't make any sound. I had a bad feeling, but I didn't know. I didn't know...he had killed her.

"He went back to his car and returned with a heavy metal can. It looked like a gas can. At first, I thought he was going to put it in our truck and drive it, but our truck already had gas. Then he poured it all around the truck."

"That b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Ben said, knowing what would happen.

Cordelia shuddered, closing her eyes for a moment.

"He walked back and lit a cigarette. Then I thought maybe it wasn't gas because I knew that that was dangerous. I knew not to get cigarettes or matches or anything near gasoline. I thought he didn't know what he was doing. I had to say something, to stop him, because if it was gas, he would hurt my dad and Alma and David.

"So I came out of the bushes. He took the matches out and lit one.

Then I knew he did know what he was doing. I yelled at him to stop and pointed the gun at him. He threw the match. I...I pulled the trigger.

"There was a brilliant flash and a roar. The kick from the gun threw me off the road and down the bluff. I was on my back and the trees over my head flickered a harsh orange.

"It took me a while to climb up the bluff, dragging the shotgun.

The truck was black, with flames still licking around it. The man lay in the middle of the road, his eyes staring, a gla.s.sy orange by the firelight.