"Sleeping like a baby."
Burke winced, the word reminding him of her confession and the baby she lost. Dredd had turned off the electric light, but a single candle flickered on the unpainted bureau. She was lying on her stomach, one cheek turned up, the other buried in the pillow. Her hair had been smoothed away from her face, positioned on the pillow just so. Dredd was good at what he did.
The wounds had stopped bleeding. For all the pain they'd given her, they were superficial. Burke wondered, though, if they would leave scars. That would be a pity, because her skin was unblemished and looked almost translucent. He thought back to the first night he'd seen her in the gazebo. She didn't look any more real to him now than she had then.
"C'est une belle femme."
"Yes, she is."
"Does this vision have a name?"
Burke turned and looked into Dredd's wizened face."Mrs. Pinkie Duvall."
There was no outcry regarding Burke's sanity, no exclamation of disbelief, no barrage of questions or demands for an explanation.
He merely stared long and hard at Burke, then nodded."There's a bottle of whiskey in that cabinet. Help yourself." He headed for the door.
"The man out there is in pain."
Dredd waved, indicating he'd heard, but he didn't turn around.
Burke availed himself of Dredd's whiskey, grateful to see that it was a brand name and not rotgut out of a jug. The only chair in the room had rickety wooden legs and a rush seat, which had been snacked on by rodents, but Burke pulled it near the bed and gingerly lowered himself into it.
He hadn't eaten since breakfast almost twenty-four hours earlier.
He should forage in Dredd's kitchen for something, but he was so tired he talked himself out of it. For a time, he just sat there, watching the woman sleep, watching the gentle rise and fall of her back with each breath and feeling like a creep because he was thinking about her breasts mashed flat beneath her.
He'd undressed her with chivalry and reasonable detachment.
Reasonable detachment. That didn't mean he didn't notice. God, how could he not? A guy has an opportunity to see the object of his fantasies naked, he's gonna look. He's gonna check out her breasts and note that the nipples are firm but very pale. Who could expect him not to notice thigh-high stockings? Get real. And panties so sheer she might just as well not have bothered?
He drank two shots of whiskey in quick succession. They hit his empty stomach like fireballs.
Her right arm was lying along her side, her hand palm up. He saw the red impressions the key ring had made in her skin when he squeezed her hand around it. He couldn't resist reaching out and tracing the cruel marks with his fingertip. Her fingers responded reflexively and curled in toward her palm. Guiltily, he snatched his hand back.
The third shot went down without burning so badly.
His gaze moved back up to her face. Her eyelids were perfectly still.
Her lips were relaxed and slightly parted. Saliva had trickled from one corner of her mouth, and it was tinged pink with blood from the cut on her lip. He touched it as he had before with his little finger, then left the moisture there on the tip of his finger to dry naturally.
He took another swig from the whiskey bottle.
Well, he'd done it. He had committed a felony, a federal offense.
He witfe was irrevocably changed. If he were to return Mrs. Duvall to her husband tomorrow, Burke Basile couldn't resume he witfe where it had left off. There was no turning back now. All escape hatches were nailed shut.
He supposed he should feel more guilty, ashamed, and scared than he did Maybe the whiskey was making him drunk. Maybe he was just too plain stupid to fear the consequences that lay in store for him. But as he fell asleep listening to Remy Duvall's soft breathing, he felt pretty damn good.
What do you mean he's gone?"
After only a few hours of sleep sitting up in Dredd's uncomfortable chair, Burke's neck was stiff, his back felt like an army had marched across it, the whiskey had left him with a dull headache, and daylight had focused the cold light of reality on the fact that he had crossed the line between enforcing the law and breaking it.
"Don't yell at me," Dredd snapped. He used a long fork to turn a piece of meat frying in an iron skillet."He's your priest, not mine."
"He's not a priest."
"You don't say?"
Burke, massaging his temple, frowned at the other man's sarcasm.
"He wname is Gregory James and he's an unemployed actor. Among other things."
"Whatever else he is," Dredd grumbled, "he's a goddamn thief. He snuck off in my best pirogue."
Burke lowered his hand."Are you saying he left by way of the swamp?"
The idea of Gregory James poling through the hostile environment of the swamp was unthinkable."The closest he'd ever come to the swamp.was last night when we tried to sink the van. He'll never survive out there alone."
"Probably not," Dredd said with a shake of his long gray ponytail.
Impervious to the season, he was wearing ragged denim cutoffs. No shirt and no shoes. His callused feet looked as tough as hooves as they shuffled across the buckled linoleum floor. He would have turned heads on a downtown city boulevard, but his odd appearance suited the environment he had created for himself. A ragged, faded Union Jack served as a window curtain. The unvented cook stove stood at the end of the counter where he rang up sales for tobacco, beer, and live bait, and within sight of where he did his taxidermy. It was a health inspector's worst nightmare, but Dredd' witmited clientele wouldn't be fussy about such things.
He was philosophical about Gregory's chances for survival."I just hope that when the food chain catches up with him, my boat will drift back.
You ready for breakfast?"
"What is it?"
"Are you hungry or particular?"
"Hungry," Burke replied reluctantly.
Dredd dished up the fried meat and ladled over it a gravy he had made with the meat drippings, a handful of flour, and a little milk. He served it with plain white bread and strong New Orleans-style coffee with chicory.
"While you were washing up, I checked on Remy," Dredd mumbled through a mouthful.
Burke stopped eating and looked at him quizzically.
"She told me her name."
"She's awake?"
"In and out."
Burke mopped up the last of the gravy with a crust of bread, actually surprised to see that his plate was empty. The unidentifiable meat had been incredibly tasty, but then Dredd was as good with seasonings as he was with the roots and herbs that went into his home remedies.
Scooting his empty plate aside, he reached for his coffee."I don't think she stirred all night."
"The effects of the sedative began to wear off while I was applying more salve to her wounds. I dosed her up again. She should sleep through most of the day."
"When can I move her?"
Dredd had finished his own meal by now and went in search of cigarettes He found a pack, lit one, took a drag, and held the smoke in his lungs for an extended time."Not that it's any of my business, but what the hell are you doing with Pinkie Duvall's wife?"
"I kidnapped her."
Dredd harrumphed, took several more drags on his cigarette, and picked bread crumbs from his beard. At least Burke hoped they were bread crumbs."Any particular reason why?"
"Vengeance." Burke related his story, beginning with the night Wayne Bardo tricked him into shooting Kev Stuart, and ending with their hair-raising escape from a mob of angry men."When I saw she was hurt, I thought of you first. I didn't know where the nearest hospital was, and we were only a few miles away from here. I know how you value your privacy. I hate like hell involving you, Dredd."
"Forget it."
"The thing is, I know I can trust you."
"You trust me, huh? Do you trust me enough to tell you like it is?"
Burke knew what was coming, but he motioned for Dredd to speak his mind.
'"You must've gone plumb crazy, Basile. The authorities could throw the book at you, but that threat's nothing compared to Duvall. Do you know who you're up against?"
"Better than you."
"So it doesn't bother you that Pinkie Duvall will gut you like a hog and leave your carcass for the buzzards?" Burke grinned wryly.
"Ouch."
Dredd, however, didn't find any humor in the remark. He shook his head with annoyance as he lit another unfiltered smoke."Before this is over, somebody will be dead."
"I'm aware of that," Burke said, no longer smiling."I'd rather it not be me, but if it is ..." He raised one shoulder eloquently.
"You've got nothing to live for anyway. Is that what you're trying to tell me? You killed your own man, your career is over, your marriage went to hell, so what's to live for. Does that about sum up your view of things?"
"Something like that."
"Bull ... shit." He divided the expletive into two distinct words as he spat a flake of tobacco off his tongue."Everybody's got something to live for, if it's nothing except to see another sunrise."
He leaned across the table and shook the cigarette at Burke's face as though it were a mother's remonstrative finger."You killed Stuart accidentally.
You quit the N.O.P.D, it didn't quit you. You had a miserable marriage. It was past time you got shed of that woman. I never did like her."
'"I didn't confide the details of my personal itfe with you so you could throw them back at me now."
"Well, tough tittie. I'm overstepping my bounds. I earned the privilege when you came busting in here last night and dumped a bleeding woman on me. Besides," he added grumpily, "I sorta like you, and I'd hate to see you get yourself killed."
His reproving expression turned softer, although compassion contrasted with his ogreish appearance."I know what I'm talking about Basile Believe me. Things can get fucked up real bad, but life is life, and dead is dead. Forever. It's not too late to cut bait and back out of this thing."
Dredd was one of the few men Burke truly respected, and he knew that his respect was reciprocated."Valid advice, Dredd. And I know you're well intentioned. But, whatever the consequences, I have to punish Wayne Bardo and Pinkie Duvall, or die trying."
"I don't get it. Why?"
"I told you why. For revenge."
Dredd stared hard at him."I ain't buying it."
"Sorry." Burke picked up his coffee mug and sipped, with that gesture closing the topic to further discussion.
Apparently Dredd saw the futility of arguing. Anchoring his cigarette in the corner of his lips, he stood and cleared their dishes off the table, tossing them into a metal sink."What're you going to do with her?"
"Nothing. I swear. It's my fault that she got hurt, and I hate like hell that it happened. I never intended to lay a hand on her. I wouldn't do that. For chrissake, I wouldn't."
Dredd turned his fuzzy head and shot Burke a pointed look.
"What?"
"You're protesting an awful lot to an innocent question."
Burke looked away from Dredd' wtwinkling eyes."This isn't about her, it's about him."
"Okay, okay, I believe you," Dredd said."All I meant was, where do you figure on stowing her while you're baiting Duvall? I'm guessing, of course. You are using her to bait a trap, right?"
"More or less. I'm going to keep her in the fishing cabin."
Burke used the cabin only once or twice a year, if he was lucky enough to get away for a few days. Whenever he did, he always stopped at Dredd's Mercantile to buy his food, beer, and bait.
Dredd's shop was off the beaten path, but to fishermen and hunters who knew their way through the labyrinth of bayous, it was a well known spot and a point of reference. Only one gravel road led to it. The primary form of transportation to and from it was by boat.
Dredd didn't make a lot of money, but he didn't need much. Most of his income was earned during alligator season. He hunted them, then sold the skins. He also did some taxidermy as a sideline.
"Who else knows about your cabin?" Dredd asked.
"Only Barbara, but she doesn't know where it is. She never went there with me, because she hated even the idea of it."
"Anybody else?"
"My brother, Joe, met me there a couple of times for a weekend of fishing. Not in a couple of years, though."
"You trust him?"
Burke laughed."My brother? Of course I trust him."
"If you say so. What about that Gregory character?"
"He's harmless."
"And you're a damn fool," Dredd said harshly."Supposing he gets lucky and finds his way out of the swamp before a cottonmouth gets him.
Supposing he starts to thinking about what Pinkie Duvall would do to him if he catches him. Supposing he figures he'll go to Duvall first and sell out your hide to save his."
"I'm not worried about that."
"Why not?"
"Because Gregory is a coward."
"He was brave enough to steal my pirogue and go into the swamp."
"Only because he's more frightened of me than he is of the elements.
He thinks I still might kill him for what he did at the Crossroads. I threatened to enough times, maybe he thinks I meant it. Anyway, he'll survive. He's lived a charmed life. When the swamp spits him back, he'll run as far and fast as he can. He won't go to Duvall."
"How do you plan to contact him?"
"Who, Duvall? You got it all wrong, Dredd. He'll contact me."
"How's he going to do that?"
"That's for him to figure out. In the meantime, I'm endangering you by staying here. So back to my original question: When can I safely move her?"
Doug Pat slowly lowered his feet from the corner of his desk and set them on the floor. At his elbow, his mug of coffee began to cool.
He reread the story three times.
It was an insignificant insert, the text using up no more than six inches of the Times Picayune's page twenty. It was a brief account of a fight that had broken out in a roadside cafe in Jefferson Parish.
Involved were two Catholic priests, the wife of a famed New Orleans attorney, and her bodyguard. According to a sheriff's office spokesman, the incident was resolved without any arrests being made.