Pike said, "I think I hear your phone."

The kid ducked inside, then reappeared shaking his head. "Nah. Must've been something else."

As my muscles warmed, the tension began to loosen and fall away like ice calving from a glacier and falling into the sea.

The kid said, "They say we're one of the top ten most dangerous cities in the country." He seemed proud of it.

I said, "We'll be careful."

Pike said, "Let's get going before I hit this twerp."

We ran south along the street that paralleled the levee, then up the little rise past the old state capitol building and then east, away from the river. The night air was warm, and the humidity let the sweat come easily. I concentrated on my breath and the rhythms of the run and the commitment needed to match Pike's pace. The run became consuming in its effort, and the focus needed to endure it was liberating. The downtown business area quickly gave way to a mix of businesses and small, single-family homes. Black. We ran along a major thoroughfare and the traffic was heavy, so we stayed on a narrow sidewalk as much as possible. The blocks were short and the cross-streets were numbered, and each time we crossed one you could get a glimpse of the lives in the little neighborhoods. We pa.s.sed African-American kids on skateboards and bicycles, and other African-American kids playing pepper in the streets or tackle football on empty lots. They stopped as we pa.s.sed and watched us without comment, two pale men trekking swiftly along the edge of their world, and I wondered if these were the areas the desk clerk had been talking about. As we ran, Pike said, "You did your best for her."

I took steady breaths. "I know."

"But you're not happy with yourself."

"I let her down. In a way, I've abandoned her." I thought about it. "It's not the first time she's been abandoned."

A lone running black man turned onto the street across from us and matched our pace. He was about our age, with a receding hairline and ebony skin and the slight, lean torso of a serious runner. Like us, he was shirtless, clothed only in shorts and running shoes, his chest and back slicked with sweat and shining the way highly polished obsidian might shine. I glanced over at him, but he ran eyes forward, as if we were not opposite him, and pretty soon I found that my eyes were forward, too, though I could see him in the periphery. I said, "She hired me to do one thing, and now I'm doing another. She hired me with every expectation that I would protect her interests, but now I'm taking this in a direction in which her interests are secondary."

We ran past a high school and shopping centers, Pike and me on our side of the street and the black runner on his, our strides matching. Pike said nothing for several minutes, and I found comfort in the loud silence. The sounds of our breathing. Our shoes striking the pavement. A metronome rhythm. Pike said, "You didn't fail her. You gave her an opportunity for love."

I glanced over at him.

"You can't put something into her heart that isn't there, Elvis. Love is not so plentiful that any of us can afford to reject it when it's offered. That's her failing. Not yours."

"It's not easy for her, Joe. For a lot of very good reasons."

"Maybe."

The black runner picked up his pace and moved ahead of us. Pike and I glanced at him in the same moment, and we picked up our pace, too. We caught him, matched him, and then we pulled ahead. Our lead lasted for a few hundred meters before he once again came abreast of us. I pushed harder, Pike pushing as one with me, and the runner across from us pushed harder still. My breath was coming in great, quick gasps, the oxygen-rich Louisiana air somehow energizing, the sweat dripping out of my hair and into my eyes, and we ran ever harder, sprinting now, we on our side of the street, he on his, and then we came to a busy intersection and slowed for the light and I turned to the other runner, smiling and intending to wave, but the black runner was gone. He had turned away from us with the cross-street, I guess, and I tried to find him but he was no longer there. We jogged in place, waiting for the light, and I found myself wishing I had called to him earlier. Now, of course, it was too late.

The light changed. Pike and I pushed on, and the miles crept behind us and the night grew late. We came to a park of soccer fields and softball diamonds, and we turned north, running along the western edge of the fields, and then west again, heading back to the river and the hotel. We had been running for almost an hour. We would run an hour still. Pike said, "Are you still thinking about her?"

"Yes."

"Then think about this. You've taken her as far as is right. Wherever she's going, she has to get the rest of the way on her own. That's not only the way it is. That's the way it should be."

"Sure, Joe. Thanks."

He grunted. Philosphy-R-Us. "Now stop thinking about her and start think about Rossier. If you don't get your head out your a.s.s, Rossier will kill you."

"You always know how to end the moment on an upbeat note, don't you?"

"That's why I get the big bucks."

Chapter 35.

M ilt Rossier called at fourteen minutes after nine the next morning. First thing out of his mouth was, "I'll go along for twenty-five hunnerd a head.""Forget it."

"Twenty-two five, then, G.o.ddammit, or I'll just leave things the way they are."

I hung up on him. If I had a strong hand, I'd play it. If I didn't, he'd know I was shooting blanks.

Six minutes later the phone again rang and he said, "Twenty-one hunnerd, you sonofab.i.t.c.h. You know G.o.dd.a.m.n well there's some give. Be reasonable."

I thought my heart was going to come through my nose. "There's more, Milt, but I'm taking it. It's a one-shot, then I'm back home and out of it. After that, if you can screwdriver Escobar out of the extra cash, go for it."

Milt Rossier said, "You sonofab.i.t.c.h," but now he was laughing. One slimebag to another. Just a couple of good ol' boys ripping off each other. "Prima's bringing a load up tonight. That too soon for you boys?"

"Nope. What time?"

"The boat comes in around ten. Prima meets my boy LeRoy at a place called the Bayou Lounge. You know it?"

"Not tonight, Milt. Have Prima meet us at the boat. Escobar and I will meet you at your place at eight. Escobar wants to go in early." If I could get Escobar. If he'd go for it.

Milt said, "Escobar gonna bring the money?"

"Sure."

"Well, good."

I said, "You didn't tip Donaldo, did you, Milt?"

"h.e.l.l, no."

"Frank wants him, Milt. That's the deal."

"I said I didn't, G.o.dd.a.m.n it. If Frank wants to be in business with me he can have Prima's a.s.s in a G.o.dd.a.m.ned croaker sack. I'll gut him and skin him, he wants."

"Good enough. He's looking forward to meeting you, Milt. He's thinking he can run in three loads a week."

Milt Rossier said, "Holy jumpin' Jesus." There were probably dollar signs in his eyes.

"Happy days, Milt."

He said, "One thing, podnuh."

"What's that?"

"You be at the Bayou waitin'. You ain't there, I'll back away from this thing like a mud bug divin' down his hole." Ah, that southern color.

"Wouldn't miss it, podnuh." Now I was doing it.

"Ol' Frank don't show, you gonna wish you had. Milt Rossier don't take s.h.i.t from any man on this G.o.d's earth. You hear where I'm coming from?"

"Loud and clear, Milt."

I hung up and called Frank Escobar. I said, "Donaldo Prima is bringing in a boat of people tonight at ten P. M. Rossier says you can have him. Are you in?"

Escobar said, "Yes."

"He wants to meet at ay place called the Bayou Lounge. We'll meet him there, then go to the boat. You have to have the money."

"Don't worry about it."

I hung up and called Jo-el Boudreaux at his home. He answered on the second ring, and his voice was shaky. He said, "Did they go for it?"

"We're on for tonight. Can you get your people together?"

He said, "Oh, Christ."

"Can you get it together?"

"Yeah. Of course, I can." He sounded strained.

"Calm down, Jo-el. The boat will come at ten, but I have to meet him at his bar at eight, and that means your people have to be in position by seven. Are you going to be able to arrange that?"

"Yeah. Yeah, sure. I'll get my guys and have them come over to the house around four, and we'll set everything up."

"I'll be there."

"Hey, Cole."

"What?"

"I appreciate this."

"Sure."

I hung up and phoned Lucy at her office and told her we were on. She said, "Do you think Jo-el can pull it off?"

"There's nothing to it, Luce. When the bad guys are all together with the money and the illegals, all he has to do is arrest them. The trick was in getting everybody together. There's nothing fancy in the bust."

"I guess not." She didn't sound convinced.

I told her that we would be putting it together at the Boudreaux's house at four, and she said that she'd call Merhlie Comeaux and that they would meet us there. We hung up, and then I went next door for Pike. I said, "We're on."

He went to his closet and got the duffel. When he picked it up you could hear the clunk of padded metal. He said, "I've been ready for years."

At three o'clock that afternoon, we went down to the car and drove across the bridge to Eunice.

Three Evangeline Parish Sheriff's Department highway cars were parked on the gra.s.s in front of Jo-el Boudreaux's house, and Lucy's Lexus was in the drive. I wondered if the neighbors might think it odd, so many cars, but maybe not. Just a little midweek barbecue for the boys. Pike and I went to the door, and Edith Boudreaux let us in. She smiled when she greeted us, but the smile seemed strained.

Lucy and Merhlie Comeaux were in the wing chairs, and three parish cops were on the sofa. The young black cop named Berry was there, along with the cop named Tommy Willets. The third cop was a guy named Dave Champagne, who looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy with a pink downy face. Willets frowned when he saw us, then looked away, shaking his head. Still with the att.i.tude. Champagne and Berry were younger than Willets. Boudreaux introduced everybody, and I stayed with the group while Pike went off by himself and stood against the wall. Both Berry and Champagne kept glancing at him. A little tray of Fig Newtons and sugar cookies was on the coffee table, and Edith Boudreaux offered us coffee in fragile china cups. She seemed anxious that we accept, and she hovered at the edges of the room, as flighty as a mayfly trapped behind gla.s.s. I thought that, in a way, this might be harder on her than on anyone else. Jo-el said, "I've told everybody that we're goin' after Milt Rossier tonight. I told'm about the illegals and Donaldo Prima and Frank Escobar and what we're tryin' to do. You wanna tell'm what you saw out there?"

I went through it about the towboat and the pumping station and the old man and the little girl, and then I told them about backtracking on Prima to uncover the scam. When I was in the middle of it Willets sat forward on the couch and stopped me. He said, "You saw a d.a.m.ned murder you shoulda come in right away."

Jo-el said, "He had his reasons, Tommy."

Tommy Willets was staring at the sheriff. "Not reportin' a crime is against the law, Jo-el. Jesus Christ, who made this guy the G.o.dd.a.m.ned sheriff?" He shot a glance at Edith. "Sorry, Edie."

Jo-el Boudreaux was looking embarra.s.sed when Dave Champagne said, "Oh, put a sock in it, Tommy. We're gonna finally take down ol' Milt Rossier. Ain't that a hoot?" He was grinning so wide his face looked like a fuzzy pink pumpkin. I looked at Pike, and Pike shook his head. We were making this bust with a Boy Scout troop.

Lucy said, "How is this thing going to be staged?"

I said, "I'm going to meet Milt Rossier and Frank Escobar at the Bayou Lounge at eight, and then we're going to the pumping station to meet the boat. The boat's due in at ten. Prima is supposed to arrive with the boat."

Jo-el looked at Merhlie Comeaux. "How we doin' with this? We clear on entrapment?"

Merhlie nodded. "I don't see a problem, sheriff. It looks clean. We give the state a clean bust with Rossier in possession of cash and a truck full of illegal aliens, and they'll put his name on a double occupancy suite in Angola. I guarantee." He said it gah-rawn-tee. Cajun.

I said, "Rossier may not actually take possession of the cash. It could go to Bennett. That's what happened last time."

"Same thing," Merhlie said. "Bennett works for Rossier, and Rossier holds the lease on the land." He looked back at Boudreaux. "I'll wait by the phone.

Just lemme know when it's done and I'll call Jack Fochet at state and we'll have of Milt arraigned by tomorrow noon. Jack Fochet is a good boy."

Berry was looking concerned. "I know the old Hyfield Oil station. How are we supposed to see any of this if it happens inside there?"

"Prima flags the towboat in from the sh.o.r.e, then they bring the trucks into the building through a couple of barn doors," I said. "They leave the doors open. You won't have any problem. That's how we saw the old man killed."

Jo-el said, "We're gonna be in the weeds, so we may not be able to see what's going on. Maybe we oughta have a sign or somethin'."

Merhlie frowned. "Well, h.e.l.l, Jo-el, what do you want him to do, wave a red bandanna? Those sons of b.i.t.c.hes have guns and they like to use them."

When he said it, Lucy sat forward in her chair. "You're going to be with them when the arrests are made?"

"Yes."

She looked at Pike, and then back to me. "Is that necessary?"

"I'm what holds it together. I'm putting Rossier and Escobar together, and they're going to want me with them all the way. Rossier's nervous, and Escobar's only going along because he thinks he's going to kill Prima." I looked at Boudreaux. "Prima isn't expecting Escobar, so when these guys see each other all h.e.l.l's going to break loose. You'll have to move fast."

Jo-el nodded. "Sure. You bet." He was pale and he kept rubbing at his jaw.

Willets hooked a thumb at Pike. "Where are you going to be, podnuh?"

Pike said, "Watching."

Willets didn't like that. "What in h.e.l.l does that mean?"